Hi
Does anyone know how to setup the freecom dvb-t usb digital tv receiver in slackware 10.2?
I am new to this linux thing , but love it already!
thanks in advance

I'm not familiar with Slackware or your Freecom device but you need to make sure the DVB modules are being used by the kernel (modprobe). Recent kernels have them in by default (2.6.11 or higher I think). Also, try starting up media player Kaffeine and see if there's a DVB tab. I changed to the latest Kannotix distro from Mepis and found my card worked straight away. You may find getting it working quite a challange if you are new to Linux (I am no expert!) and your distro doesn't detect it automatically.

I am only running 2.4x kernel and modprobe does'nt list any dvb modules so I guess thats it.
Will upgrade to 2.6.11 kernel and see how i go.
Thanks

Use the most recent kernel you can. Your device is not mentioned in the kernel documentation for 2.6.12 or among the USB devices on the linuxtv site

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.ph...at_the_USB_bus

If it is just a rebranding of a working device maybe you are still OK. You should at least try plugging it into a running system and checking the last few lines of the 'dmesg' output, which may show if it is picked up by the USB system, and maybe some useful hardware information.

Thanks Maroon,
Here is the last few lines of dmesg output :

uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 18:53:41 Jun 5 2005
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
hub.c: new USB device 00:03.2-2, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x14aa/0x222) is not claimed by any active driver .
usb.c: USB disconnect on device 00:03.2-2 address 2
hub.c: new USB device 00:03.2-2, assigned address 3
usb.c: USB device 3 (vend/prod 0x14aa/0x222) is not claimed by any active driver

Any more ideas?
Will check on linuxtv also for possible answers.
thx

The vendor ID 14aa is listed as Avermedia, but might also be badged as HAMA. The product ID wasn't in the list. There are a few USB-DVB options in the kernel. Maybe the CONFIG_DVB_DIBUSB is worth trying first as it works with some HAMA devices.

Anyway I would have a go at compiling the latest kernel version with any likely looking DVB options as modules. I've never used a USB-DVB device so I don't know what to expect, but the linuxtv site has a lot of examples (even if a bit chaotic). You can just load the modules by hand with modprobe while you are experimenting.

An alternative is to find a really up-to-date live CD, boot it up and see if it picks up the device. I wouldn't bother unless you can find something with 2.6.12 kernel or later.

I will give those suggestions a try . thanks again for your time maroon.

Hi.

Just wondering if anyone got this to work in the end.....

I am trying to do exactly this, and here's my findings....

The demodulator device is Zarlink MT352 (there are compilable drivers for this)

I'm using Mandriva LE 2005 (MDK 10.2, Kernel 2.6.11-6)

So far, my attempts have failed!!!

Even tried to recompile the kernel - failed!! Never tried to recompile a kernel before so what could I expect eh??!!

There are some instructions on how to add support in on the linux dvb wiki on www.linuxtv.org, but I' too inexperienced for this....

Anyone got an easier route... Hoping....!

THanks.

Getting new/unsupported hardware to run is mainly for people with technical experience, or who like solving problems and puzzles. Compiling and tweaking a new kernel is quite easy after a bit of practice and well worth learning to do.

The alternative is to get a very up-to-date distro or live CD with good hardware detection, and hope they caught up with your hardware. For example slackware-based Zenwalk www.zenwalk.org should soon be out with a new version with 2.6.13-mm3 kernel. Current version picked up and installed my dvb-t PCI card OK. It is only about 400Mb to download. For live CDs Knoppix is always worth a try.

The device is listed as supported at the linuxtv.org site at:-

http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DV...Boxes_and_Pens

I've recently purchased one and will try to set it up and report back.

If anyone else beats me to it - I'll read your post.

Paul

Well I got a bit further but still dont have it working yet.
I upgraded to 2.6.13.4 kernel and enabled all dvb options i could find.
dmesg now says:
hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 5-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
usb 1-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
dvb-usb: found a 'WideView WT-220U PenType Receiver (and clones)' in warm state.
dvb-usb: will use the device's hardware PID filter (table count: 15).
DVB: registering new adapter (WideView WT-220U PenType Receiver (and clones)).
DVB: registering frontend 0 (WideView USB DVB-T)...
dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 300 msecs.
dvb-usb: WideView WT-220U PenType Receiver (and clones) successfully initialized and connected.
usbcore: registered new driver usblp

However lsusb still says:

Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c50e Logitech, Inc. MX-1000 Cordless Mouse Receiver
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 14aa:0221 AVerMedia (again) or C&E
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

I am stumpted as to what to do next !! any ideas anyone?
thx

So have you tried using it?

I had to search around for the frequency/channel data for my area. This is usually in a file called channels.conf. I don't know how you would go about generating this from scratch. There are multiple feeds coming in at each frequency so I don't think you can just scan the spectrum.

The most basic app is called 'tzap'. This just tunes the device to a particular frequency according to the information in channels.conf, and shows the signal strength/quality.

Hehe yes I tried using it but still nothing

I changed my kernel config to load all dvb stuff as modules instead


Module Size Used by
video_buf 17924 0
snd_pcm_oss 47904 0
snd_mixer_oss 17536 1 snd_pcm_oss
dvb_usb_dtt200u 8708 0
dvb_usb 20296 1 dvb_usb_dtt200u
amd64_agp 10696 1
snd_emu10k1 117220 3
snd_rawmidi 20832 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_seq_device 7500 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec 82428 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm 82116 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 21764 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 8904 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem 3840 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep 7712 1 snd_emu10k1
snd 47460 14 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,sn d_hwdep
emu10k1_gp 3200 0
gameport 12616 2 emu10k1_gp
agpgart 30160 1 amd64_agp


But when i run tzap or scan it says it cant find my adapter.
I think it is looking under /dev/dvb but when I look in /dev thats where my dvb stuff is eg.
dvb0demux0 , dvb0dvr0 etc...

Linuxtv howtos have me confused and i feel i am nearly there!!!

Once again I apologise for my newbness but i am stumpted.

Are you running udev? Command 'ps aux | grep udev' will show a line with 'udevd' if you are. It may be that udev has not created the special device files.

Typically you should have directory /dev/dvb/adapter0 and a bunch of device files in there. What error message does tzap give?

hey maroon,

ok now i'm using kernel version 2.6.14.
dmesg says:
dvb-usb: found a 'WideView WT-220U PenType Receiver (Typhoon/Freecom)' in warm state.
dvb-usb: will use the device's hardware PID filter (table count: 15).
DVB: registering new adapter (WideView WT-220U PenType Receiver (Typhoon/Freecom)).
DVB: registering frontend 0 (WideView USB DVB-T)...
dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 300 msecs.
dvb-usb: WideView WT-220U PenType Receiver (Typhoon/Freecom) successfully initialized and connected.
usbcore: registered new driver dvb_usb_dtt200u
dvb-usb: recv bulk message failed: -110
[drm:drm_unlock] *ERROR* Process 3801 using kernel context 0

lsmod says:

Module Size Used by
snd_pcm_oss 48096 0
snd_mixer_oss 17408 2 snd_pcm_oss
dvb_usb_dtt200u 8772 0
dvb_usb 20104 1 dvb_usb_dtt200u
i2c_core 18496 1 dvb_usb
snd_emu10k1 117412 2
snd_rawmidi 20832 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_seq_device 7500 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec 92668 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm 81924 3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 21700 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_ac97_bus 2304 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_page_alloc 8904 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem 3776 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep 7648 1 snd_emu10k1
snd 47268 11 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,sn d_hwdep
emu10k1_gp 3200 0


when i run "ps aux | grep udev" it returns:

root 926 0.0 0.0 1492 480 ? S<s 00:26 0:00 udevd
username 4131 0.0 0.0 1772 604 pts/1 S+ 00:33 0:00 grep udev

But i still dont have anything in "/dev/dvb/adapter0" in fact the folder does'nt exist!!


tzap returns "no such file or folder" when looking for driver files.
This is the command I have been running:

./tzap /dev/dvb/adaptor0/dvr0 -c channels.conf-dvbt-uk-Winterhill

not sure if this is the correct command btw...but all variations i have tried return the same error.

I am starting to think this may be a kernel thing , but some one must have one of these working.

thanks again for your time (and patience!!)