Re: RTL28XX driver

[Gianluca Gennari <gennarone@gmail.com>]

Hi Thomas,

Il 09/04/2012 14:02, Thomas Mair ha scritto:
> Hi Gainluca,
> 
> thanks for your information. I did get in touch with Realtek and they
> provided me with the datasheet for the RTL2832U. So what I will try to
> do is write a demodulator driver for the RTL2832 demod chip following
> the information of the datasheet and the Realtek driver. I will follow
> Antti's RTL2830 driver structure.

that's very good news.

> For now there is only one question left regarding the testing of the
> drivers. What is the best way to test and debug the drivers. Sould I
> compile the 3.4 kernel and use it, or is it safer to set up a
> structure like the one I already have to test the driver with a stable
> kernel?

I think the best option is to clone the DVB development tree:

http://git.linuxtv.org/media_tree.git

then you can create your branch and base your work on top of it.

Best regards,
Gianluca

> Greetings
> Thomas
> 
> 2012/4/7 Gianluca Gennari <gennarone@gmail.com>:
>> Il 06/04/2012 11:11, Thomas Mair ha scritto:
>>> Hello everyone,
>>>
>>> i own a TerraTec Cinergy T Stick Black device, and was able to find a
>>> working driver for the device. It seems to be, that the driver was
>>> originally written by Realtek and has since been updated by different
>>> Developers to meet DVB API changes. I was wondering what would be the
>>> necessary steps to include the driver into the kernel sources?
>>>
>>> The one thing that needs to be solved before even thinking about the
>>> integration, is the licencing of the code. I did find it on two
>>> different locations, but without any licencing information. So
>>> probably Realtek should be contacted. I am willing to deal with that,
>>> but need furter information on under whitch lisence the code has to be
>>> relased.
>>>
>>> So far, I put up a Github repository for the driver, which enables me
>>> to compile the proper kernel modue at
>>> https://github.com/tmair/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0
>>> The modificatioins to the driver where taken from openpli
>>> http://openpli.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=openpli/openembedded;a=blob;f=recipes/linux/linux-etxx00/dvb-usb-rtl2832.patch;h=063114c8ce4a2dbcf8c8dde1b4ab4f8e329a2afa;hb=HEAD
>>>
>>> In the driver sources I stumbled accross many different devices
>>> containig the RTL28XX chipset, so I suppose the driver would enably
>>> quite many products to work.
>>>
>>> As I am relatively new to the developement of dvb drivers I appreciate
>>> any help in stabilizing the driver and proper integration into the dvb
>>> API.
>>>
>>
>> Hi Thomas,
>> the Realtek driver you mention is the full version, which supports 3
>> demodulators (2832=DVB-T, 2836=DTMB, 2840=DVB-C) and 10 different tuners.
>> There is also a simplified version of the driver which supports only
>> DVB-T and 4 tuners: this is probably a better starting base for your
>> project.
>>
>> You can find the simplified driver here:
>>
>> https://github.com/ambrosa/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-4_tuner
>>
>> My friend Ambrosa got it directly from Realtek. You can mail the 2
>> driver authors directly:
>>
>> author: � � � � Dean Chung <DeanChung@realtek.com>
>> author: � � � � Chialing Lu <chialing@realtek.com>
>>
>> as they have been quite collaborative last year. I think they can also
>> provide you some information about the code license.
>>
>> The rtl2832 devices I've seen so far use either the Fitipower fc0012 or
>> the Elonics E4000 tuner. For the first one there is a driver from
>> Hans-Frieder Vogt that is not yet included in the development tree, but
>> it has been posted recently on this list.
>>
>> If your stick uses this tuner, then the problem reduces to write the
>> demodulator driver (as Antti already explained).
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Gianluca
>>
>