Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[John Lewis]

How to set up the AverMedia TV Volar Black HD DVB-T USB stick.
Vendor ID 0x1d6b Product ID 0x2

Having just been through this exercise in Puppy 4.3.1 I thought it might be helpful to detail the process in the hope it might help others. This works on sd card frugal in eee701SD pc and from multisession DVD just fine.

The basic steps are:
1. Install driver if not already. The driver for this card is in 4.3.1 already. It is dvb-usb-af9015.ko

2. Install the firmware file dvb-usb-af9015.fw in /lib/firmware. For some reason it was absent.

3. Install linuxtv-apps-1.1.1.pet. Then:

4. In terminal run MAKEDEV-DVB.sh to create the device nodes.

If you now plug in the stick and run dmesg you should have a warm device shown along with some other information.

5. Download and untar dvbt-scanaid-0.03.tar.bz2 to a suitable location. I put it in root.

6. Run scanaid to create a text file of channel data.

7. Run this command in terminal:
cd dvbt-scanaid-0.03
./Create_Scanning_Table
scan Scanlist.txt >/root/.xine/channels.conf

There are some listed text files for various locations in directory DVB-T in "My Applications" and by experimenting with these I got SBS running too. as it was not picked up by the initial scan.

Now for a useful extra to enable easier channel changes and recording.

Install Gtb-DVB.pet.

For this to work you need to also install GtkBasic003e.pet and PuppyBasic-2.6.pet.

I'm very pleased with this. It works better in Puppy than in Mepis on my main desktop computer where HDTV tends to stutter a bit.

Puppy linux Search and Google helped me find all the necessary bits and pieces.

The above steps should work with almost any version of Puppy as long as you have the necessary driver and firmware files. You may need to compile them if you can't find what you want with Puppy search.as I'm now trying to do for another card I have that is not yet supported.

Thanks to all the great people on this forum who contributed the dot pets and their time and expertise. Without you I would never have succeeded. I have just collected all the information I found here in one place to help others.

Files needed.

dvb-usb-af9015.fw.
http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af9015/af9015_firmware_cutter/firmware_files/4.71.0/

Linuxtv-apps-1.1.1.pet
http://puppyfiles.org/dotpupsde/dotpups/Multimedia/Mplayer-1.0rc1/

dvbt-scanaid-0.03.tar.bz2
http://www.johannes-bauer.com/dvbt/dvbt-scanaid-0.03.tar.bz2

Gtb-DVB.pet (Half way down page)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29513

GtkBasic003e.pet
http://dotpups.de/puppy3/dotpups/Programming/GtkBasic003/GtkBasic003e.pet

PuppyBasic-2.6.pet (On this page)
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/Programming/



John Lewis

[edoc]

Sure appreciate you sharing this!

Have you heard from anyone who has tried this under any other versions of Puppy?

I was thinking of trying this with Spup 040 and have asked elsewhere about that - no replies yet.

[John Lewis]

I've not tried it in another Puppy but I think it should work so long as the af9015 file files matches the kernal.

By the way the link for scanaid no longer works. I found another source via Google. Sorry can't give link at present as it is on another computer. If you are stuck I could email files if you wish.

Off to watch TDF on TV now.

John Lewis

[edoc]

[edoc]

BTW: Barry has temporarily suspended/postponed development of Spup at 040 and has returned to Wary. Spup seems the best-of-breed so I sure hope he returns to it soon!

He intends to use the 2.6.32.16 kernel in Wary.

Any idea if it is compatible?

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01737
http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01738

[John Lewis]

Hi edoc,
Hope this helps. I've not been checking the forum a lot lately due to other commitments.

The file
dvb-usb-af9015.fw. from
http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af9015/af9015_firmware_cutter/firmware_files/4.71.0/
You already have? Not sure whether it is kernel specific. probably not.

This is the odd one.
Install driver if not already. The driver for this card is in 4.3.1 already.it is dvb-usb-af9015.ko

I'm pretty sure this will be kernel specific. If it is included in your puppy version you are set. Not sure what to do if it is not. You could try the one from 4.3.1 I guess and see what happens.

I cut and pasted from my notes for the above .

When I get a chance I am going to try some other pups to see what happens.

John Lewis

One thing I've noticed. If you don't have a good working antenna nothing appears to work at all. The little one that comes with the stick doesn't work at all here.

[edoc]

This shows up in Spup 040 vi Pfind:
/lib/modules/2.6.34.1/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9015.ko

I had downloaded:

[John Lewis]

Does you version of Puppy have the dvb-usb-af9015.ko file?

A good way to try would be to put a frugal install of your puppy on a USB stick and try it there. That way should be no danger of damaging the installation provided it has its own save file. In any event I'm pretty sure that if the file is wrong it won't be a problem. You would just remove it.

John Lewis

[edoc]

According to Pfind it is here in Spup 040:

/lib/modules/2.6.34.1/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9015.ko

[gronos04]

@edoc

dmesg | grep dvb

if the firmware is incompatible you will see a bunch of squawks.

[John Lewis]

[edoc]

[gronos04]

@edoc

Was your dvb device plugged in before running the dmesg command?.
If it was then the kernel has no support for dvb

[edoc]

[gronos04]

@edoc

Yes plug it in and boot.
You can activate it but it ain't in the frontal lobes at the moment ie I have forgotten exactly how.

modprobe -something or other