General Info

This remote is absolutely great. It is USB and has it's own receiver. However, it is an RF (radio frequency) receiver, as oppoased to an infrared receiver. There is a third-party hack to let it work with LIRC until support for this remote is included into the LIRC main branch. Here is how to get it working:

Installation Method One: Install using LIRC

Requirements

Linux system running devfs
Kernel source for your running kernel, located at '/usr/src/linux' (NOTE: This kernel source must have had at least 'make dep' run in it, so that the proper header files, etc. have been generated).
'lirc-0.6.6' (or greater) from http://lirc.sourceforge.net
'lirc_usb.c' from 'ati_remote' http://gatos.sourceforge.net (NOTE: Please make sure you get the file from the CVS, as it is not yet in the 'ati_remote' tarball)
OPTIONAL: While in the CVS for 'ati_remote', you can grab the 'lircd.conf', but I have never had any luck getting it working; I have had to always generate my own. Your mileage may vary.
UPDATE: The lirc_usb.c is no longer available from either CVS or alternate sources (googled). The Gatos people seems to have integrated everything inte just one source file. Compliling the single source file ati_remote.c and running "insmod ati_remote.o" works. You just have to remember to recompile kernel with "input" and "USB" support.

Compilation

METHOD ONE: lirc is not already installed

Untar and uncompress 'lirc-0.6.6.tar.[gz|bz2]'
Copy 'lirc_usb.c' into one of the driver directories, and rename it to the same as whatever 'lirc_*.c' already exists in there. For example, if you copy into the 'drivers/lirc_sir' directory, you would rename the 'lirc_usb.c' file to 'lirc_sir.c' (This will overwrite the existing file 'lirc_*.c' file in the directrory)
Run './configure --with-driver=sir' (replace 'sir' with whatever directory you copied your lirc_usb.c' file into in Step 2). Of course, you can also add whatever additional './configure' options you wish
Run 'make' then 'make install'.
Change to the '/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/misc' directory, and change the name of the 'lirc_*.o' file to 'lirc_usb.o' (e.g., 'mv lirc_sir.o lirc_usb.o').
Run 'depmod -a' again.

METHOD TWO: lirc is already installed

Untar and uncompress 'lirc-0.6.6.tar.[gz|bz2]'
Copy 'lirc_usb.c' into one of the driver directories, and rename it to the same as whatever 'lirc_*.c' already exists in there. For example, if you copy into the 'drivers/lirc_sir' directory, you would rename the 'lirc_usb.c' file to 'lirc_sir.c' (This will overwrite the existing file 'lirc_*.c' file in the directrory)
Staying in the driver's directory, run 'make'.
Rename the resulting 'lirc_*.o' file to 'lirc_usb.o' (e.g., 'mv lirc_sir.o lirc_usb.o')
Copy 'lirc_usb.o' to the '/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/misc' directory
Run 'depmod -a'

Configuration

Load the module: 'modprobe lirc_usb debug=1'
Generate an 'lircd.conf' file for the remote: 'irrecord -d /dev/usb/remote0' (follow the instructions from 'irrecord')
Copy the resulting file to '/etc/lircd.conf'
Run '~freevo/helpers lircd2lircrc.pl' to generate an 'lircrc' file from your 'lircd.conf' file, that you can then put into '/etc/freevo'
Edit '/etc/freevo/lircrc' to change the name of some of the Freevo events to what Freevo is looking for, so as to have the remote work properly (refer to Freevo's sample 'lircrc' file for this)

Loading and Running

Load the module: 'modprobe lirc_usb debug=1'
Start lirc: 'lircd -d /dev/usb/remote0 /etc/lircd.conf'
Confirm the remote is working properly by running 'irw' and pressing a few buttons

Congratulations! You now have a working ATI USB remote for use with Freevo!

Installation Method Two: Without LIRC

Tutorial / Tutoriel

Follow the instructions on this page: http://remotew.free.fr/linux_en.htm

Note: It is important to use xmodmap as suggested to configure keycodes

Les mêmes instructions mais en français: http://remotew.free.fr/linux_fr.htm

NB: Utilisez xmodmap commme les instructions suggèrent pour configurer les touches de votre manette.

Check that it works

1. Use xev to verify funcitonality. This also gives you keycodes. See tutorial above. 2. If no output seen in xev, the su to root, and then run the following:

This is the expected output 
. 
# lsmod | grep ati 
ati_remote              6424   0  (unused) 
input                   5664   0  [ati_remote keybdev mousedev hid] 
usbcore                72992   1  [ati_remote hid printer usb-uhci]

3. If you are like me, you will discover that nothing showed up. Now check if the module 'hid' is loaded:

 This is the expected output
 . 
 # lsmod | grep hid 
 hid                    20900   0  (unused) 
 input                   5664   0  [ati_remote keybdev mousedev hid] 
 usbcore                72992   1  [ati_remote hid printer usb-uhci]

4. Again, if you are like me, you will discover that hid is not installed either. Probably somewhere around this point you will realize that you do not have anything in /dev/input/mice The simple solution is to simply type the following:

 # modprobe hid 
 # modprobe ati_remote

And voila, it will work.

5. You do not want to do this everytime you load X, so a file called remote in the /etc/X11/xinit.d/ directory with the follwing contents:

 modprobe hid 
 modprobe ati_radeon

6. Finally, make this file executable by typing # chmod a+x /etc/X11/xinit.d/remote.

Example xmodmap file

Running xev and writing down all the keycodes is not that fun, so you can try this configuration file: http://audacious.kysis.org/files/xmodmap_freevo (comments in french)

Note: Keycodes may vary, mine are actually different than the ones on the tutorial page.

For more information on mapping keys to your preference, see KeyMaps