How-to: DVB-T USB TV tuner with Genie 619W (Afatech Chip)
Posted: Sat 13 Dec 2008, 22:52
I got a Genie 618W USB DVB-T dongle as a gift.
Found out the Chip in the thing is from Afatech with Vendor ID 015a4, PID 09016
I got it working in Puppy 3 series, could not get it to run in puppy 4 series, but now have it working in Puppy 5.11 Lucid
Most of the information in this thread goes into how it worked for the older Puppies or the attempts to get it going. For Puppy 5 its quick and easy - just keep reading.
First regardless of the Puppy version you need to do this:
From http://www.linuxtv.org get hold of a firmware file "dvb-usb-af9015.fw" and copy it to /lib/firmware/
I am using firmware version 4.95 found at
http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af901 ... es/4.95.0/
For Puppy 5.11
You still need to install linux tv apps
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/Mp ... -1.1.1.pet
That gives you the scan command not included in Puppy 5.11
Find in the internet the initial scan file for your area
http://linuxtv.org/hg/dvb-apps/file/afd ... can/dvb-t/
and run scan as following in a console
(in the example my initial scan file is called "de-Bonn")
Watch it tune in to the stations it finds and build a channels.conf file.
Put channels.conf in your root directory.
Now get a reasonable media player like VLC. You will find it in the quickpet software.
Make this script to start VLC
Use the next track arrow thingo to change channels, or the playlist --- easy!
The Puppy 4 series story
Problem is I needed to run it on a Puppy 4.0 or a Retro Puppy 4.1 as my old machines are all IDE hard drive based.
In other words I needed to get the device drivers working on a 2.6.21.7 Kernel
Then reading the info at linuxtv.org I realized I would need the following drivers (modules)
- af9013.ko
- dvb-usb-af9015.ko
And one of tuner modules:
- mt2060.ko
- tda18271.ko
Great now I tried to compile some of the 9015 drivers- borrowed a pup 3 kernel source sfs (no true puppy 4.0 version around)
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... rc_301.sfs
and the devx sfs
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... vx_400.sfs
and away I went.
Compiling went okay. Copied the files to:
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/af9013.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/mt2060.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9015.ko
Then turned on the device using:
(Note the order of these commands was important)
and looked at the output of dmesg
and it seemed to be working - hurrah!
Then after running scan (see other DVB-T threads for the linuxtv-DVB-apps-1.pet package with DVB utilities)
and a suitable initial scan file I scoured from the internet (in this case de-Bonn)
I got tuning failed errors.
Nevertheless the modules may be okay for other Afatech based units - They are attached to this thread (Lintv modules, not the oem ones)
NOTE: If you are using a newer kernel (like 2.6.25 - normal versions of puppy 4.1 etc you may have to compile your own). This one here is only for 2.6.21.7 kernel - Puppy 4.0 and retro versions of newer puppies.
Further searching lead me to some OEM drivers that were somehow GPL released.
I compiled them and copied them to
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/
Then initialized the unit with:
Tried scan again as above and this time it worked.
Copied my "mychannels.conf" to channels.conf in root/.xine/
Ran the MAKEDEV-DVB.sh script (part of the DVB utilties)
Ran Gxine and the first channel in channels.conf popped up. YES!!!!
I have also run mplayer successfully - see other threads on how to run it from the command line.
Attached is a small archive of the oem driver modules and the firmware file in the right place for puppy 4.0 and possible retro puppys
For more tips on DVB-T with puppy there are quite a few threads
try them with DVB as a keyword in puppy google search
http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html[/b]
Found out the Chip in the thing is from Afatech with Vendor ID 015a4, PID 09016
I got it working in Puppy 3 series, could not get it to run in puppy 4 series, but now have it working in Puppy 5.11 Lucid
Most of the information in this thread goes into how it worked for the older Puppies or the attempts to get it going. For Puppy 5 its quick and easy - just keep reading.
First regardless of the Puppy version you need to do this:
From http://www.linuxtv.org get hold of a firmware file "dvb-usb-af9015.fw" and copy it to /lib/firmware/
I am using firmware version 4.95 found at
http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af901 ... es/4.95.0/
For Puppy 5.11
You still need to install linux tv apps
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Multimedia/Mp ... -1.1.1.pet
That gives you the scan command not included in Puppy 5.11
Find in the internet the initial scan file for your area
http://linuxtv.org/hg/dvb-apps/file/afd ... can/dvb-t/
and run scan as following in a console
(in the example my initial scan file is called "de-Bonn")
Code: Select all
scan de-Bonn | tee channels.conf
Put channels.conf in your root directory.
Now get a reasonable media player like VLC. You will find it in the quickpet software.
Make this script to start VLC
Code: Select all
#!/bin/sh
vlc -vvv /root/channels.conf
The Puppy 4 series story
Problem is I needed to run it on a Puppy 4.0 or a Retro Puppy 4.1 as my old machines are all IDE hard drive based.
In other words I needed to get the device drivers working on a 2.6.21.7 Kernel
Then reading the info at linuxtv.org I realized I would need the following drivers (modules)
- af9013.ko
- dvb-usb-af9015.ko
And one of tuner modules:
- mt2060.ko
- tda18271.ko
Great now I tried to compile some of the 9015 drivers- borrowed a pup 3 kernel source sfs (no true puppy 4.0 version around)
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... rc_301.sfs
and the devx sfs
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... vx_400.sfs
and away I went.
Compiling went okay. Copied the files to:
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/af9013.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/mt2060.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9015.ko
Then turned on the device using:
Code: Select all
modprobe dvb_usb
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/af9013.ko
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/mt2060.ko
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9015.ko
and looked at the output of dmesg
Code: Select all
dmesg | grep dvb
Then after running scan (see other DVB-T threads for the linuxtv-DVB-apps-1.pet package with DVB utilities)
and a suitable initial scan file I scoured from the internet (in this case de-Bonn)
Code: Select all
scan de-Bonn >mychannels.conf
Nevertheless the modules may be okay for other Afatech based units - They are attached to this thread (Lintv modules, not the oem ones)
NOTE: If you are using a newer kernel (like 2.6.25 - normal versions of puppy 4.1 etc you may have to compile your own). This one here is only for 2.6.21.7 kernel - Puppy 4.0 and retro versions of newer puppies.
Further searching lead me to some OEM drivers that were somehow GPL released.
I compiled them and copied them to
/lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/
Then initialized the unit with:
Code: Select all
modprobe dvb_usb
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.21.7/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-af901x.ko
Copied my "mychannels.conf" to channels.conf in root/.xine/
Ran the MAKEDEV-DVB.sh script (part of the DVB utilties)
Ran Gxine and the first channel in channels.conf popped up. YES!!!!
I have also run mplayer successfully - see other threads on how to run it from the command line.
Attached is a small archive of the oem driver modules and the firmware file in the right place for puppy 4.0 and possible retro puppys
For more tips on DVB-T with puppy there are quite a few threads
try them with DVB as a keyword in puppy google search
http://wellminded.com/puppy/pupsearch.html[/b]