How to install hardware driver on Debian? Many newbie questions...
 

I am to install TV Tuner card driver on Debian Linux box. Being a newbie, I am unable to make a decisions, which are seem to be very basic.

1) How to know if driver is already installed and need not to be installed?

2) As I know, there are two ways to install anything on Linux: either using package system, or using make from withins shipped tar.gzipped files.

If I do make, don't I break the package system? If I have a driver, which come only in tar.gz format, does this mean, that I have no other way than using make?

3) The precise name of my card is AVerTV Hybrid Speedy PCI-E, and the driver said to be capable to drive it is here: http://jusst.de/hg/saa716x/

When I am trying to perform make operations, I get an error message

File not found: /lib/modules/2.6.26-2-amd64/build/.config at ./scripts/make_kconfig.pl line 32, <IN> line 4.


What does it mean? I am thinking now, that this implies kernel compilation. Is this correct? What does the directory /lib/modules/2.6.26-2-amd64/build/ serves for? If I compile the kernel, didn't I break the package system? If I compile the kernel, do I get the following config file?

Thanks.

what i would do try is-
apt-get install module-assistant

i would install this, and then run it as root.
look it over for the options, modules, you can build. if yours is in there, then i would go this way.

second
apt-get install alien
look at the man pages for this. it will convert your tar.gz to a deb package.

i looked for that card being supported with linux, yet i couldn't find anything specific. mostly people looking at installing it as you are.

cheers.

It needs the kernel headers to compile a kernel module to drive the card, I think they are missing from your system..
to expand on emtibs suggestion I would do the following.

aptitude update
aptitude install module-assistant build-essential
m-a update
m-a prepare


That should ensure you have everything needed to compile, the module assistant (m-a) commands will look at the kernel you are running, then automatically download and install the proper kernel header files you need for compiling driver modules.

After that is done try to compile your driver again per the instructions in the INSTALL or README file for that driver. ..

Thank you! Something is getting clearer, but some questions remain.

For example, if I have .tar.gz with make inside and have many posible make entries in INSTALL documentation, what will happen if I convert this file into .deb? Is it really can convert precisely? What of make entry will be equivalent for .deb installation?

I have a file

saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d.tar.gz

which contains a driver. I have issued a command

alien saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d.tar.gz

and got a file

saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d_1-2_all.deb

which is debian package probably. Then I did

dpkg -i saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d_1-2_all.deb

and it said

Selecting previously deselected package saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d.
(Reading database ... 113331 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d (from saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d_1-2_all.deb) ...
Setting up saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d (1-2) ...

And nothing else happenning.
What did happen at this stage?

Looking into m-a's SELECT section, I see nothing named "saa*". I can see this package in aptitude's listing, but what does it mean?

Sorry for being newbie :)

try
Read the readme and install files

Yes, this is what I am going to do, but I am interested to understand what have happened in result of my these operations :)

tar will extract the archive
cd will change to the directory
what do you want to know ? how configure and make works?
configure will see if everything is present on your system to compile the program
make will compile the program
make install will install the files on your system.

I would like to know, for example:

1) What have happened after my command dpkg -i saa716x-a4a5111ecb1d_1-2_all.deb? (except appearing new line in aptitude screen)

2) What names are displayed by m-a? Where it takes them? I can do nothing with them.

For instance, I have an entry "dvb-driver" there. I am putting asterisk into it and pressing ENTER. The I get new menu: LIST, SEARCH, GET, BUILD, INSTALL, BACK

Pressing LIST gives me:

│
│ dvb-driver-source (source package not installed): │
│ -- Binary package(s) for kernel(s): │
│ + (2.6.26-2-amd64): not found │
│ Some packages could not be found. The "search" command can search in the │
│ package pool for precompiled │
│ packages.

Pressing SEARCH gives me:

│ dvb-driver-source (source package not installed): │
│ -- Binary package(s) for kernel(s): │
│ + (2.6.26-2-amd64):

Pressing GET gives me:

│ Installation of the dvb-driver-source source failed. ↑
│ ▮
│ Ignoring this package. Maybe you need to add something to ▒
│ sources.list, maybe the contrib and non-free archives. ▒
│ a ▒

Pressing BUILD calls GET.

Preing INSTALL does nothing.

So, it looks like the assistant is not working. Is this becaue of my amd64 kernel?

I rarely ever use the Module-assistant interface for anything other than looking up a module name, then I drop back to the command line and do the install..


m-a update
m-a prepare
m-a a-i dvb-driver


These shorthand command work rather than typing out the full command every time. m-a = module-assistant, a-i = auto-install

man m-a for descriptions of what each of the above lines do..

I have the following message after last of your commands:

Interesting.. that is definitely listed in the m-a select screen, I looked to verify, but there is NO package binary or source with that name... It looks like it might be aleftover from back in the Debian 3.x days.. I can't quite tell for sure.

Source
http://packages.debian.org/search?su...s&keywords=dvb

Binary
http://packages.debian.org/search?su...s&keywords=dvb


I would just install the binary dvb packages you need to start using aptitude or synaptic..

So, the question remains: what the list of names displayed by m-a is? Where it get it?

By the way, it seems to me that I found a way to know if specific driver is running: this is lsmod command what for.

Since I was failed to install Avermedia's card, I have turned to another one -- Pinnacle's. It is told to be supported on LinuxTV site.

I have installed their universla dvb package with make utility and now see a lot of tv-related modules running with lsmod.

But another problem arose. LinuxTV has "scan" utility to test TV card functionning.

When I running it it says:

testbed:~# scan /usr/share/dvb/atsc/us-MA-Boston
scanning /usr/share/dvb/atsc/us-MA-Boston
using '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0' and '/dev/dvb/adapter0/demux0'
main:2273: FATAL: failed to open '/dev/dvb/adapter0/frontend0': 2 No such file or directory

Neither dvb folder, nor it's subobjects exist on my system. This implies new question: who controls the files under /dev creation? Is driver running sufficient to appropriate file appear? If I see no dvb directory, does it mean that the driver didn't create it or something else could happen?