Recommendations for MythTV and Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-HD-S2 satellite TV card

Vladivir · 10-15-2009, 03:52 PM

Hello. This is my first posting on this forum, but firstly I’d like to thank all contributors to LinuxQuestions as I’ve found answers to many things here in the past.

My problem is simple - I just cannot get the above card to work correctly. I would like to have MythTV running with this card, and I’m not fussy about which distro I use to achieve this. I am most familiar with Knoppix and Ubuntu, so ideally it would be a Debian distro. I’ve tried various versions of Knoppix, Knoppmyth, Ubuntu, Mythbuntu, Fedora and Mythdora so far

I know that the hardware is working correctly as I once was able to run a version of Knoppix and view DVB-S (Astra 28.2E) channels, but the HD channels were received as still images every few seconds. The PC is a dual core 2.88GHz Pentium with 2GB RAM and a 250GB SATA hard drive, so it’s no slouch.

I’m familiar with loading the Liplianin drivers and firmware (as detailed here). Using kernel 2.6.31 (Mythbuntu 9.10 Alpha 6) I’m getting ‘cx24116_firmware_on demand’ errors. I’ve seen references to a Ubuntu bug 363682 for this.

So, is there anyone out there running this card under Linux and MythTV, or should I give up and buy something else with better Linux support?

Here is some information from a freshly installed Mythbuntu:

Code:

Linux MythTV 2.6.31-10-generic #34-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 16 00:23:19 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Code:

LSPCI -
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44 [GeForce 6200 LE] (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
04:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 05)
04:01.1 Multimedia controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [Audio Port] (rev 05)
04:01.2 Multimedia controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [MPEG Port] (rev 05)
04:01.4 Multimedia controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder [IR Port] (rev 05)

Code:

DMESG | Grep DVB -
[    5.597815] cx88/2: cx2388x dvb driver version 0.0.7 loaded
[    5.597820] cx88/2: registering cx8802 driver, type: dvb access: shared

rodericjones · 11-01-2009, 05:55 AM

I have been trying to get this card working in Vista and Ubuntu for some months without success. I installed Windows 7 last week and the card was recognised and worked perfectly. I had worried that the card or the connection to the LNB or something was faulty. This prompted me to try it again in Ubuntu which is the OS I use 99% of the time. It turned out to be quite simple with the recently released Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 - both 64 bit and 32 bit versions. I had tried Mythubuntu previously but it is overly complex.

You need to put the firmware file in the firmware directory /lib/firmware

The file is called dvb-fe-cx24116.fw

You also need a channels.cfg file which is relevant to where you live. Me TV prompts you to browse to the file when you install it.

Install Me-TV and it all works. On my setup the BBCHD TV does not work perfectly but everything else is OK.

The only other thing to note is that I bought this card to record BBC Radio 3 in Wales. I live in a valley and there is no terrestrial radio or TV. A programme called Get-iplayer has replaced my need for the card. This only works in the UK but if you live in the UK it is well worth as try.

I hope this helps.

Vladivir · 11-01-2009, 12:07 PM

Many thanks for the helpful reply rodericjones. I was beginning to think that I was on my own with this problem!

I've recently installed the full release of Mythbuntu 9.10, but I'll download a copy of Ubuntu 9.10 instead, and will follow your recommendations. I'd also reverted back to my previous non-HD card (Nova-S), hoping that I could at least run on that.

I am also based in the UK and am primarily interested in Freesat and Freesat-HD from Astra 28.2E.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Regards,

Vladivir.