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DVB-T drivers for Armbian


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Hi everyone,

 

I am trying to get TVHeadEnd working on my Helios4 NAS, which is currently running Debian Stretch with Armbian Linux 4.19.63-mvebu. The software has installed, and I can access the web GUI on port 9981. However, I cannot see my tuner device under TV adapters. If I type dmesg into the command line, I can see the RTL2838UHIDIR device connected to USB. However there is nothing listed under /dev/dvb. I'm wondering if Armbian might be missing some of the drivers that are included with full Debian.

 

I would appreciate any help in getting my USB TV tuner working with Armbian. Thanks.

 

 

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2 hours ago, LogicalUnit said:

'm wondering if Armbian might be missing some of the drivers that are included with full Debian.

 

Armbian does not support every hardware on the planet. Nor Debian do. Burt if you tell us (with a pull request) what to enable and/or prepare a patch with a tested driver, it will be included. Else it will not be included. We can't afford to cover implementation expenses on your behalf.

 

Debian is free, Armbian is free, generates no income and "you" pay virtually nothing for maintenance which is already an insane expensive. Without even touching things like TV tuners. If there will be no response on this forum, but you are unable to prepare things on your own, do a PR with help from someone from https://www.debian.org/consultants.

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Hi, sorry if what I was asking for was unreasonable. I wouldn't know how to prepare a patch -- it was my friend who suggested that the DVB-T dongle wasn't working because of a missing driver. I'm trying to learn how to install a new driver on Linux.

 

Meanwhile, I have connected the DVB-T dongle to a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian, and TVHeadEnd was able to detect the tuner, and I'm now watching TV :) I hope this means an Armbian solution is possible.

 

I would like to get it working on my NAS because the RPi has limited recording space.

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1 hour ago, LogicalUnit said:

I would like to get it working


Read my reply once again. I told you exactly what you have to do - it is an valued advise. Hire or find someone that will help you doing this - porting / implementing this driver. We simply don't have resources for that since you (random users) currently cover below 0.5% of the project costs - we can't hire help - and we never had a plan to support 3rd party hardware. Your request is, in light of those facts, unreasonable, yes.

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8 hours ago, martinayotte said:

Do an "lsmod" on your RaspberryPi to figure out which module has been loaded.

 

There seem to be a number of related modules:

 

r820t

rtl2832

dvb_usb_rtl28xxu

dvb_usb_v2

dvb_core

 

I have some experience with Linux, but I am not an expert. Is it possible to enable these modules on Armbian?

 

EDIT: There's a thread from 2016 about this: 

I have never tried to patch a kernel before, and these instructions appear to apply to an older version.

 

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23 minutes ago, LogicalUnit said:

Is it possible to enable these modules on Armbian?

It seems that modules are already enabled in some AllWinner boards :

CONFIG_DVB_RTL2832=m
CONFIG_DVB_RTL2832_SDR=m

Do a "grep RTL2832 /boot/config*" on your board.

If not enabled, it should be pretty easy to do custom builds by adding the above settings in default config in armbian .

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26 minutes ago, martinayotte said:

Do a "grep RTL2832 /boot/config*" on your board.

If not enabled, it should be pretty easy to do custom builds by adding the above settings in default config in armbian .

 

Thanks for the tip. I tried to grep for RTL2832, and also DVB, but found no matches. My device is a Helios4 NAS.

 

EDIT: I also notice that there is this entry in the changelog (https://docs.armbian.com/Release_Changelog/) for version v5.15 / 1.7.2016

 

-Added RTL2832U drivers to kernel (DVB-T)

 

I'm not 100% sure what that version number applies to. Is it possible to upgrade my kernel, which is at 4.19 to 5.15?

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On 12/27/2019 at 11:45 PM, @lex said:

It has been a while since i last touched the 4.19 , but i think you should enable:

 


CONFIG_DVB_USB_RTL28XXU

 

Look for the module *rtl28xxu* (build as a module).

Hi, thanks for the help. I have tried to grep for the string "RTL28" in /boot/config-4.19.63-mvebu but can't find anything. Do I need to build the module first? If so, can you tell me how to do that please?

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11 hours ago, LogicalUnit said:

grep for the string "RTL28" in /boot/config-4.19.63-mvebu but can't find anything.

Looking at Armbian scripts with "grep RTL28 config/kernel/linux-mvebu*", it seems that only linux-mvebu64-legacy.config has it enabled.

You can edit proper config and then do a custom build ...

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16 hours ago, martinayotte said:

You can edit proper config and then do a custom build ...

I'm not sure what this means. I understand the basics of Linux, but have never compiled my own drivers or made my own "build". I just downloaded the Armbian Stretch image from here: https://www.armbian.com/helios4/ and installed it to an SD card. I have configured Open Media Vault, Nextcloud, Minidlna, and Transmission-daemon. I would prefer to keep these and avoid starting from scratch.

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4 hours ago, LogicalUnit said:

 I would prefer to keep these and avoid starting from scratch.


That's not a problem. Armbian build tools pack kernel and other artefacts into standard .deb files (linux-image*.deb and linux-dtb-*.deb are minimal needed) which you install on the board with dpkg -i linux-image ... after you change some functionality in sources and recompile.

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It seems like in comparison between linux-mvebu64-legacy.config and linux-mvebu-legacy.config the whole dvb secion is missing for mvebu64. the only config file that includes dvb is linux-mvebu64-legacy.config. The entire section seems missing in any other mvebu(64) config.

 

I'll try looking into that.

 

PR provided. For current mvebu at least. Either wait until someone approves or build your own kernel using the updated config. https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/1707

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