Technotrend S2-3200 drivers doing nothing

[skerit]

Hey all,

I've finally installed my Technotrend S2-3200 DVB-S2 card (My satellite dish is getting installed tomorrow)
I followed these instructions to install the driver to the letter: http://wilco.bercot.org/debian/s2-3200.html

But for some completely unknown reason the modules do nothing when I load them. I get no /dev/dvb
There are *no* compilation errors! So I don't know what could be the problem

Some console output:

lspci
04:01.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7146 (rev 01)

dmesg | grep saa
[   37.931073] Audiowerk 2 sound card (saa7146 chipset) detected and managed
[   38.332543] saa7146: register extension 'budget_ci dvb'.

I should be getting a lot more from that dmesg message!

[skerit]

I've found out it's probably because of the older Linux kernel that the drivers don't work. On Mythbuntu 8.04 everything loads smoothly - but I don't want Mythbuntu, I want LinuxMCE

[totallymaxed]

I've found out it's probably because of the older Linux kernel that the drivers don't work. On Mythbuntu 8.04 everything loads smoothly - but I don't want Mythbuntu, I want LinuxMCE

Hmmm... what have you discovered is missing in the 2.6.22-14 kernel to cause this problem? Any pointers?

All the best

Andrew

[skerit]

To be honest, I don't have a single clue.

The multiproto drivers are very unstable, I followed the same tutorial (http://wilco.bercot.org/debian/s2-3200.html) on LinuxMCE and on Mythbuntu, and all I know is it worked on Mythbuntu.

Don't get me wrong though, the modules loaded without a problem! I compiled them without a single hitch, I just would not be able to get a /dev/dvb folder, nor would anything show up in my dmesg. For some reason the modules wouldn't "attach" to my device.

[skerit]

I believe the problem to  be some kind of incompatibility between the latest drivers and LinuxMCE's kernel version.
I created my own tutorial to get around this (by compiling from a specific, older, revision)

http://skerit.kipdola.com/?p=5&language=en

Please note, LinuxMCE tries to load its own modules for this card, if you want to get it to work without a reboot you need to unload every DVB module! (including tt_pci and such)

[gazzzman]

thanks for the info so far Skerit
it has at least enabled me to load the drivers
and the card is now "seen" in mythtv !
the scan from the command line worked a treat...
now any thoughts how we can use it with Linuxmce ?
I don't mind vdr or myth
just have no idea where to go from here!
oh and how is vdr working these days?
(and I take it there is still no S2 support in vdr??)
cheers!
and have a great weekend!

[totallymaxed]

thanks for the info so far Skerit
it has at least enabled me to load the drivers
and the card is now "seen" in mythtv !
the scan from the command line worked a treat...
now any thoughts how we can use it with Linuxmce ?
I don't mind vdr or myth
just have no idea where to go from here!
oh and how is vdr working these days?
(and I take it there is still no S2 support in vdr??)
cheers!
and have a great weekend!

Well... if the card is working with valid video devices then it should work fine in either vdr or Myth;

vdr-1.6.0 in the current release of LinuxMCE-0710 is the stable version but does not support S2. vdr-1.7.x is needed to test S2 but this is the development version and is not yet released as stable.

Andrew

[gazzzman]

Hi Andrew
after I scan for channels at command line (it seems to find 940 or so on Astra 28.2E) I go to myth setup and tell it about my channels.conf file
it accepts the file but goes on to do a scan of it's own and that scan finds nothing!
I am fairly sure if I want to use VDR I will have to start again from scratch (re-install LMCE etc) as I recall just changing things in LMCE once you have set them is not a clean operation at all
so I am a little confused about the best path to take (understatement lol!)
also (if I read it correctly - and the status has not changed) if I where to install VDR I can only watch TV on the device that the tuner card resides in?
and as the tuner card is in the core.. and not in any entertainment area as such this is less than ideal
cheers!
Gazzzman

[totallymaxed]

Hi Andrew
after I scan for channels at command line (it seems to find 940 or so on Astra 28.2E) I go to myth setup and tell it about my channels.conf file
it accepts the file but goes on to do a scan of it's own and that scan finds nothing!
I am fairly sure if I want to use VDR I will have to start again from scratch (re-install LMCE etc) as I recall just changing things in LMCE once you have set them is not a clean operation at all
so I am a little confused about the best path to take (understatement lol!)
also (if I read it correctly - and the status has not changed) if I where to install VDR I can only watch TV on the device that the tuner card resides in?
and as the tuner card is in the core.. and not in any entertainment area as such this is less than ideal
cheers!
Gazzzman

Hmmm... sorry i have no experience with Myth at all so i can't help on that front... maybe someone else can help?

As for switching to vdr... yes realistically at the moment you would need to reinstall. Hopefully 'hot swapping' between the two will be possible in the near future though.

Yes the current vdr-1.6.0 implementation has no support for streaming to live TV to MD's. Its something we hope to to bring to an update soon though.

Andrew

[skerit]

No, it will not work "out of the box" with MythTV or VDR.

To get them to work, you need the latest multiproto drivers, which I have not been able to get to work in LMCE, because lots of API changes happened in the new drivers, so they have no clue what VDR or mythtv is telling them. There are patches, though, but you'd have to recompile VDR or mythtv anyway. Should the new drivers work, I still don't know how you can do this AND keep linuxmce working as it should.

I added a VDR tutorial on my blog too, but it's not as polished as my others, unfortunately

[gazzzman]

thanks skerit!
I "think" the drivers are working under LMCE (how would I know lol!)
they appear to load and in Myth it identifies the card correctly
but it seems like I am going to have to wait for others to do some work before I see any results
(I will have to see if I can get my tt1500 ci back for now)
then (when VDR is fixed I will probably have to change everything around again as it looks like I am going to have tuners all over the house for now!!)
it looks like I will be keeping a close eye on your blog!!!
it's days like this... I can feel the micro$oft force pulling at me
wouldn't it be great if the manufacturers where a lot more interested in Linux!!
thanks for your help!!
Gazzzman