# Keyspan Digital Media Remote

## niai

Hey,

Does anyone have any experience getting the Keyspan Digital Media Remote working under Gentoo (or Linux in general).

I notice the LIRC page lists it as unsupported

Thanks

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## noup

hi, have you managed to find a solution? i too am looking forward to get this working...

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## downey

Just thought I'd let you know that there is a new driver for the Digital Media Remote in the 2.6.13 release.  I don't know how many people have tried it yet but I'm using it now on my remote and it's working pretty well.  You need to build a key map to map the special key codes that it generates to keys that you want to use.  If anyone is still interested in this thread then just respond back and I'll post the modmap file that I'm using.  Also I haven't heard if the LIRC project has decided to support the device yet or not but it shouldn't be too long before it does.

Just thought I'd put in a shameless plug in for the driver.

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## noup

 *downey wrote:*   

> Just thought I'd let you know that there is a new driver for the Digital Media Remote in the 2.6.13 release.  I don't know how many people have tried it yet but I'm using it now on my remote and it's working pretty well.  You need to build a key map to map the special key codes that it generates to keys that you want to use.  If anyone is still interested in this thread then just respond back and I'll post the modmap file that I'm using.  Also I haven't heard if the LIRC project has decided to support the device yet or not but it shouldn't be too long before it does.
> 
> Just thought I'd put in a shameless plug in for the driver.

 

Those are excellent news, thanks for noticing it (i wouldn't myself, otherwise).

Though, how did you build your modmap file? I'll only be using my keyspan remote again in a month, but nonetheless, that would be useful right now.

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## downey

Sorry I didn't post back sooner I wasn't checking the forum too much lately.

Anyway here is my modmap commands:

```
xmodmap -e "keycode 232 = XF86AudioStop"

xmodmap -e "keycode 168 = XF86AudioPlay"

xmodmap -e "keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev"

xmodmap -e "keycode 152 = XF86AudioRewind"

xmodmap -e "keycode 233 = XF86Forward"

xmodmap -e "keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext"

xmodmap -e "keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume"

xmodmap -e "keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume"

xmodmap -e "keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute"

xmodmap -e "keycode 158 = Menu"
```

You should be able to add that into the /etc/X11/Xmodmap file and it should load it everytime X starts.  The remote basically acts like a keyboard so you will need something like lineakd to handle what happens when those keycodes are given to X.  If you need more information just look in the keyspan_remote.c file in /usr/src/linux/drivers/usb/input/ and you should see my email address.

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## noup

 *downey wrote:*   

> Sorry I didn't post back sooner I wasn't checking the forum too much lately.
> 
> Anyway here is my modmap commands:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

thanks! i'll give it a try as soon as i can.

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## lavacano

i dunno... mine doesnt do anything with the Xmodmap thing.  I might have bad batteries, however I get [1009331.289734] drivers/usb/input/keyspan_remote.c: connected: Keyspan USB-IR o                                                            n usb-0000:00:1d.0-1

holding the remote directly in front of the receiver produces no feedback,  is there a /dev device?

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## downey

I've got a couple of emails on this so just wanted to make sure I updated the info here.

You will also need to emerge lineakd.  Lineakd is a deamon that looks for the extra XF86 keycodes that aren't normally on a keyboard and maps them to commands to send to certain apps.  So you can set up the Stop, Play, Prev, and Rewind to control XMMS  or XINE.  The problem is that those applications need to have a command line interface to be able to do this.  As far as I know Totem and XMMS both can support this functionality.  I haven't tried XINE or anything else.  Read up on the docs for your favorite player and it likely has this functionality.

If you want to test to make sure the remote is working then you should bring up a terminal in X and use the up, down, left, right and select buttons to move the cursor.  The select will send an enter to the terminal.  Also if the remote comes up properly it should stop blinking.  If it doesn't stop blinking then check dmesg to make sure the module loaded.  If the module did load then make sure that the receiver is a UIA-11 receiver, not a UIA-10.  The UIA-10 type is an older type receiver that requires a ROM load to get it to work correctly.  I don't have access to the ROM and I don't have an UIA-10 receiver so if you really need to support that remote then you will likely need to contact Keyspan.  Also every time you push a button on the remote you should see the receiver blink.  If it doesn't then you probably have bad batteries or are too far away.  I've tested the receiver from about 15 feet and it looks to work.  There isn't a device associated with the remote, it should just look like a keyboard.  

I hope that covers everything.

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## jnihil

```
If you want to test to make sure the remote is working then you should bring up a terminal in X and use the up, down, left, right and select buttons to move the cursor. The select will send an enter to the terminal.
```

Great tip. I couldn't tell if the device was working or not. Thanks a bundle.

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