On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 13:52:39 +0200, Ville Skytt? wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 02:14 +0200, Otto J. Makela wrote:
> > The first hurdle was downloading and installing the card firmware,
> > why, oh why, can't the package creators actually document what
> > they have and have not included with it?
>
> I'm not sure what you're asking, but the package maintainer doesn't
> have a setup that would need any firmware nor has access to one and
> nobody has reported any related issues before this. Could you
> provide an example of what kind of package specific documentation
> would you have found useful?
I'd like to see very simple things in this installation documentation
like what the mechanism for starting the software is, what plugins are
included, and what kind of tweaks may be required before using it.
For example, in vdr-1.3.37-0.lvn.1.4 the start mechanism is a
standard /etc/init.d script, but it wasn't that long ago when the
recommendation was to run vdr directly from inittab.
Another example where documentation would make things easier,
it took me a while (call me stupid) to figure out yum-2.4.1-1.fc4:
the way /etc/cron.daily/yum.cron looks at /var/lock/subsys/yum,
which is controlled by /etc/init.d/yum {start|stop} -- elegant,
but a bit obscure unless you know what's happening.
The vdr package drops files to /etc/sysconfig, /etc/vdr, /srv,
/usr/bin, /usr/lib, /usr/sbin, /usr/share, /var/cache, /var/lib, plus
of course /etc/rc.d and /var/run. It'd be nice to have it immediately
pointed out to you that /etc/vdr is where the configs are, /srv is
where the recordings go and /var/cache is where the epg is stored, as
the "documentation" in /usr/share/doc of course says nothing about
these things. I'm not sure how standard these locations are at this
point of vdr development?
I can well understand not including info on the firmware if one
doesn't have the hardware that requires it. I find it a bit
frustrating that one has to search for these other things oneself
when using ready-made packages, very handy though they are.
If I wanted to explore and have a grand adventure at it, I would build
from bleeding-edge CVS. I'd prefer not to, I just don't have the time
for it, that's exactly why I'm using the ready-built packages
(thanks to whoever maintains them!)
> > Both packages just include the standard (nigh-useless) original
> > documentation. Of course the fact that vdr says the firmware
> > should go to /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware instead of the correct
> > location /lib/firmware did not help much, could this be fixed?
>
> I don't see anything in VDR's documentation or sources that would
> refer to any firmware paths, so the thing saying the above is
> probably the DVB driver you're using. I just sent a patch to the DVB
> mailing list that might improve the related messages and docs a bit.
You are correct, it's the dvb driver:
Dec 25 19:55:59 piglet kernel: dvb-ttpci: could not load firmware, file not found: dvb-ttpci-01.fw
Dec 25 19:55:59 piglet kernel: dvb-ttpci: usually this should be in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware
Dec 25 19:55:59 piglet kernel: dvb-ttpci: and can be downloaded here http://www.linuxtv.org/download/dvb/firmware/
> > Does anyone have a ready working channels.conf for DVB-C in Helsinki?
>
> Will send you mine in PM.
Thanks, used this as a basis to correct the problem in my generator --
turns out having anything but zero in the NID field causes the rather
strange problems I was experiencing. As before, my channels.conf
generator for HTV is available at http://eetis.co.jyu.fi/dvb/
If you've read so far, sorry about all the kvetching.
--
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