The Linux Infrared Remote Control (LIRC) Project

I cheated a little for the software and used a short cut made possible by Jarod Wilson, who has done a great job of documenting MythTV and Fedora Core 4. After you have used up2date to bring your system up to date with the latest security patches, start up a terminal session and enter:

   su
   <enter the root password>
   echo "export KVER=\`uname -r\`" >>
/etc/profile.d/kver.sh
   cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
   wget http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/atrpms.repo
   wget http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/freshrpms.repo
   yum install lirc-kmdl-$KVER
   yum install lirc-lib
   wget --no-check-certificate
https://svn.wilsonet.com/svn/mythtvology/trunk/rc.sysinit-mm.diff
  
   patch /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit < rc.sysinit-mm.diff
   yum install lirc

Assuming that you are connecting the detector to ttyS0, put the following lines in file /etc/modprobe.conf:

   install lirc_serial /bin/setserial /dev/ttyS0 uart
none ; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install lirc_serial
   alias char-major-61 lirc_serial
   options lirc_serial irq=4 io=0x3f8   

If you are connecting the detector to ttyS1, enter the following lines:

   install lirc_serial /bin/setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart
none ; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install lirc_serial
   alias char-major-61 lirc_serial
   options lirc_serial irq=3 io=0x2f8  

To test that you have a working infrared detector, type mode2. Point a working remote control at your detector and start pressing buttons. If you see something like:

   pulse 1187
   space 596
   pulse 598
   space 623
   pulse 553
   space 643
   pulse 630
   space 603

you have a working detector. If not, it's time to open up the hood and start troubleshooting. The first thing to check for is cold solder joints, where the solder has not bonded properly with the parts. Look for connections with a dull surface. Clip the heat sink to the appropriate nearby part, reheat those joints and remove the old solder with your solder remover. Then, re-solder using fresh solder.

Two Fully Complete Detectors

Assuming things do work now, you need to start configuring your system to work with the remote. But that is another significant project, one for another article.