LIRC - the Linux Infrared Remote Control project [LWN.net]

LIRC - the Linux Infrared Remote Control project

Posted Jan 13, 2007 13:40 UTC (Sat) by scarabaeus (guest, #7142)
Parent article: LIRC - the Linux Infrared Remote Control project

My (maybe uninformed?) impression was that LIRC is a dying project which will not make it into the kernel. I thought that newer hardware used some other mechanism to transmit remote control info to the kernel - HID?? At least my DVB-T receiver (Terratec Cinergy T2) does this; using the remote control results in the generation of keyboard input, which is not useful in all cases.

IMHO, a de-facto API standard for remote controls is urgently needed for Linux 2.6, and I doubt that it is LIRC, as LIRC will not enter the mainline.

LWN folks, like the others above I'm also surprised not to read a well-informed explanation about the probable future of LIRC! You're usually excellent at providing a good estimation on the future of kernel-related projects!

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LIRC - the Linux Infrared Remote Control project

Posted Jan 18, 2007 8:16 UTC (Thu) by tcwan (guest, #42830) [Link]

The problem lies with standalone IR remotes (via serial/usb).

A lot of v4l2 tuner card with IR remotes currently support event passing via the kernel's Input Layer. Hence some button presses (0-9) show up as keypresses in a terminal. You can configure lirc to accept button events via the input layer. I have this setup for my Freevo media box.

However, configuring LIRC to work properly is an entire-weekend exercise. Hopefully the Input Layer becomes the standard interface for all remotes and we can bypass LIRC altogether.