getting lirc working

[Zach]

Hi all,

Has anybody gotten lirc up and running in Ubuntu?

A search of the forum turns up mostly frustration.

I've found that the lirc-modules-source package doesn't work (at least
not for me).  It seems to generate .o (2.4-style i believe?) kernel
modules, vs .ko (which is appropriate for 2.6).  It also puts them in
/lib/modules/kernel-source-ver/misc/ which isn't right.

I've also found the manual build routine in the lirc source doesn't
seem to work right with Ubuntu either.  It calls for you to run
./lirc-source/setup.sh; make; make install, but it won't compile/make.
 I did discover, by accident, that after I run through the song &
dance of trying to set up lirc-modules-source, which fails, then
comming back to the lirc source ./setup.sh, make, make install
routine, then it goes ahead and compiles and installs.  Though i still
had to to manual configuration of modules as well as fixing
/etc/lirc/hardware.conf, which was misconfigured.  Suffice it to say,
that although it's now working for me, it was a giant PITA.  What's
worse is that although it is working, I don't know *why* it's working
or *why* it wasn't working before.

If anyone has had good success with lirc in Ubuntu or (or even with
debian & 2.6 kernel), and can provide or point to a good howto for
lirc & ubuntu, we really need it.  The forums seem generally confirm
my frustration:
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?s=0dcb51f95caec1a1eec5943fdbbf7b0a&t=14927

A searc of google: "lirc site:lists.ubuntu.com" doesn't turn up
anything useful either.

Even nicer would be lirc-kernel-module packages like Axel is
maintaining over at atrpms.  But that would be a lot to ask and good,
clear howto would suffice.

Thanks
Zach