Ubuntu 6.10 IVTV Installation

Ubuntu 6.10 includes support to directly install drivers for IVTV from the repositories. You will only need to obtain the firmware for the drivers (described below), and properly update the drivers on kernel updates (also described below).

To begin:

• Install the packages via aptitude:

sudo aptitude install ivtv-source devscripts ivtv-utils 

• Download the firmware for the ivtv driver.

wget ftp://ftp.shspvr.com/download/wintv-pvr_250-350/inf/pvr_1.18.21.22254_inf.zip  

• Build the firmware deb from the firmware you just downloaded.

export DEBFULLNAME="Mario Limonciello" 
export DEBEMAIL="superm1@ubuntu.com"
sudo ivtv-make-fwpkg pvr_1.18.21.22254_inf.zip 

• Install the firmware

sudo dpkg -i ivtv*firmware*deb 

• Install the missing firmware file. Both the PVR-150 & PVR-500 need this file. It won't hurt to put it there for a PVR-250 & PVR-350 however.

wget http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~superm1/contrib/firmware/v4l-cx25840.fw 
sudo mv v4l-cx25840.fw /lib/firmware 

• Now, prepare module-assistant. Every time a new kernel is installed, once you boot into it, you will have to rerun these commands to reinstall the driver for that kernel:

sudo m-a update,prepare
sudo m-a a-i ivtv
sudo depmod -a 

• Insert the driver

sudo modprobe ivtv 

• Check dmesg to see if there are any errors loading firmware or anything like that.

dmesg 

Look in between the two blocks for START IVTV and END IVTV. If you see any errors about "unable to load firmware" or "missing module" or anything like that, go into #ubuntu and see if you can grab some help or post on the forums.