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Leadtek Dongle Gold Remote with lircd and Ubuntu/Linux Mint 10 and 11

Also applies to...

These instructions also work for Mint 10, Mint 11 and Ubuntu 11.

General observations

The remote appears as an ir input device. In lirc the correct REMOTE_DRIVER to use is "devinput".

Drivers

Firstly, you need to install the firmware for the dongle if you haven't already. You can do this using the "Additional Drivers" program once you've plugged your dongle in.

Pre-requisites

To get all of the buttons working on the remote you need kernel .38 or later. Earlier kernels only support a subset of the remotes buttons.

Install lirc with 'sudo apt-get install lircd'. Choose "custom" for the remote control. Lircd currently has no config files for the Leadtek Dongle Gold.

Relevant directories

  • lirc config files - /etc/lirc/

Configuration process

Download hardware.conf and place it in your /etc/lirc/ directory.

Download: hardware.conf ( - 1k)

Finding a non-varying (ie. static between reboots) path to the remote device from a dongle:

  • ls -la /dev/input/by-path/

Edit the hardware.conf file to update the uncommented REMOTE_DEVICE line with the relevant 'event-ir' line from the output of 'ls -la /dev/input/by-path/'

  • sudo gedit /etc/lirc/hardware.conf

Restart lircd:

  • sudo /etc/init.d/lirc restart

Test that remote is working properly by running:

  • irw

You should see remote codes appear in your terminal window when you press keys.

Download the lircd.conf config file for the Dongle Gold remote and place it in the /etc/lirc/ directory.

Download: lircd.conf ( - 1k)

At this point in time we now have lircd running, properly configured to take the output from our remote via the hardware.conf config and using lircd.conf translate our particular remote control codes into something that we can then use with other programs.

The final step is adding the config files that will translate the lircd generated key codes into the right key-presses for our target applications.

I'm using this remote with mythtv. For this purpose, download the 'mythtv' file and place it in your ~/.lirc/ directory.

Download: mythtv ( - 4k)

Your ~/.lirc/ directory should contain a .lircic file that has an include line for the mythtv config file:

  • include ~/.lirc/mythtv

Start your mythtv frontend and all should be good.

  • seeing what event a device is on - cat /proc/bus/input/devices

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