2007-12-21, 06:48
I know that some of us have gotten lirc working to use the MCE remote control. Some of us also have MCE keyboards though and have found that the lirc setup only gets the media keys working - seems a waste. Tonight on a lark, and being far from home, I did some digging to see if anyone had found solutions for this issue and I think I've found some help.
Two threads in the Ubuntu help forums look promising. ->
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=592057
and
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=350009
Which seem to lead to the mod_mce project.
What this appears to be is a kernel module that acts as a kbrd\mouse driver and a piece of code that can also act like lirc does for using the normal remote too. Near as I can tell a problem with using lirc is that it only seems to work in some applications, perhaps those that are coded to be "aware" of lirc. So getting lirc to work at say the terminal prompt doesn't look really likely (be gentle, I'm no pro and am trying hard to figure this out so could be wrong...). The advantage of this other driver is that it seems to sit a bit lower and can emulate kbrd/mouse functionality to programs that don't need to be coded specifically for it - I think. That they have also allowed for the normal remote to work emulating lirc is a nice touch!
Now, I've not yet gotten to try this and honestly have hit a wall trying to compile kernel modules in general (I'm seeking help from friends) so hopefully this information will help out someone who's better at this figure out how to do this or what needs to be done.
The Microsoft HTPC gear is pretty readily available and their controllers are too so it seems to me that bending it to our use is a good way to go - hopefully this helps! As it happens I think I'm about to pop for a Harmony 360 remote to try and replace my MCE hand held and a small pile of others so I'll try to report on that when\if it happens too. I would love to hear from others tinkering\researching with this stuff too...:o
Two threads in the Ubuntu help forums look promising. ->
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=592057
and
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=350009
Which seem to lead to the mod_mce project.
What this appears to be is a kernel module that acts as a kbrd\mouse driver and a piece of code that can also act like lirc does for using the normal remote too. Near as I can tell a problem with using lirc is that it only seems to work in some applications, perhaps those that are coded to be "aware" of lirc. So getting lirc to work at say the terminal prompt doesn't look really likely (be gentle, I'm no pro and am trying hard to figure this out so could be wrong...). The advantage of this other driver is that it seems to sit a bit lower and can emulate kbrd/mouse functionality to programs that don't need to be coded specifically for it - I think. That they have also allowed for the normal remote to work emulating lirc is a nice touch!
Now, I've not yet gotten to try this and honestly have hit a wall trying to compile kernel modules in general (I'm seeking help from friends) so hopefully this information will help out someone who's better at this figure out how to do this or what needs to be done.
The Microsoft HTPC gear is pretty readily available and their controllers are too so it seems to me that bending it to our use is a good way to go - hopefully this helps! As it happens I think I'm about to pop for a Harmony 360 remote to try and replace my MCE hand held and a small pile of others so I'll try to report on that when\if it happens too. I would love to hear from others tinkering\researching with this stuff too...:o