Wintv Go Remote setup

(These instructions are deprecated and no longer required for myth installs as it now autodetects correctly.

For those who can't get knoppmyth 5.5 with myth 0.21 working on their WinTV Go Plus, use the Mythbuntu distribution. Knoppmyth appears to have broken compatibility with this device.)

Benjamin Bradford

There are many messages from people trying to get a remote working on knoppmyth with their gotv. However, the new release R5E50 requires a specific list of detailed instructions for the beginner. The remote is a A415 style usually, and in the version R5E50 (0.2) of knoppmyth they are not ready to go out of the box.

Here are the steps that I took to get the remote functional under R5E50. Where commands are given, each command should have an "enter" after it and be entered on a separate line.

First, remove the battery cover and batteries and check the remote type on the sticker on the inside of the battery compartment. If it's a A415-HPG it matches mine. This is referred (bizarrely) as the "silver remote" although it's a silverish gray or gray-ish silver. It certainly isn't a bright silver.

Now install knoppmyth, following the standard installation instructions shown elsewhere. Even if you do everything right with knoppmyth version R5E50, the remote will not be functional until you take these steps. Some of these steps are not necessary (if not most), but are included for ease of use and completeness:

1) Exit out of the main knoppmyth screen. This should read "watch tv, media library, manage recordings, etc." if you are still on the setup screen which gives the options "General, Appearance, tv settings, etc. then you need to complete the setup of myth, exit myth by pressing the escape key once to complete the configuration, and then exit that same myth menu again (with a single escape) after you've answered its questions. You've probably discovered that if you escape too many times configuration doesn't complete in R5E50. Escape until it asks you if you want to quit, then answer "yes."

2) From "watch tv, media library, manage recordings, " press escape, then choose that you'd like to exit myth's main screen.

3) Now that you're in the main window, right click on it, choose apps and then shells, then bash. This gets you to the command line (terminal).

4) Type "su - root" (without the quotes, of course) to login as root.

5) Enter your root password that you entered when you first configured knoppmyth.

6) Type lsmod to see if lirc_i2c is running or not. It probably won't be. That's okay.

7) type: cd /etc we're going to put the lircrc file here. This configures the remote and is missing in R5E50

8) type: wget http://wilsonet.com/mythtv/lircrc-haupgrey-g3.txt this downloads the correct lircrc file for this remote. It takes only a few seconds to download.

9) type: cp lircrc-haupgrey-g3.txt lircrc the actual name of the file must be lircrc. This copies the file to the right name.

10) type: /usr/local/bin/lirc-reconfig.sh Now that the file exists, the remote can be configured correctly using the simple shell script included for remotes.

11) Choose the type of remote (happauge) and the specific remote model (Silver - A415) from the menu. The shell will complete.

12) type: modprobe lirc_i2c From now on, running lsmod should show you this as running

13) type: mode2 -d /dev/lirc0 Test your remote at this stage, each time you press a button on it, you should see output on the screen. If not, check your cabling.

14) Press CTRL-C to exit the previous program and return to the command line

15) lircd --nodaemon --device=/dev/lirc0 This runs lircd on device /dev/lirc0 (If it says that lircd is already running, go have a coffee and try this command again after it kills the stale lockfile. It won't be running.) It keeps the daemon running in the terminal so you can test your remote.

16) edit /etc/udev/rules.d/020_permissions.rules. The lirc device entry is towards the bottom and looks liek KERNEL"lirc0-9?*" GROUP="video" You want to insert MODE="0664" between the GROUP and KERNEL entries.

17) Now you need to edit your bootmisc.sh file to get the remote working on bootup (ie. lirc_i2c must run at boot time) Go to the correct directory where /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh is located. Type: cd /etc/init.d

18) vi bootmisc.sh this allows you to edit the bootmisc.sh file

19) scroll to the bottom of the file, then press the "a" key to append after the cursor. Insert a blank line or two. Be sure that there's no # at the beginning of the line so that the commands are run.

20) type: modprobe lirc_i2c the same thing we did above, but now it's happening at the start

21) lircd --device=/dev/lirc0

22) Hit the "esc" key then press :wq and enter which writes the additions to the file. Feel free to reenter the vi command to verify that you wrote the correct lines in

23) now type shutdown -r now to reboot the machine, test your silver/gray a415 remote, it should be working! Congratulations!