Wednesday 12 November 2008

Geniatech T328B dvb-t usb freeview stick on ubuntu

Update 8/1/2009:
Changed the hg clone source and added a different firmware



Yesterday i got a Geniatech T328B usb freeview stick deliverd and decieded to try set it up on ubuntu and after some searching on the internet i managed to get it working and this is how i did it, i think this should work with any usb freeview stick with the Af9015 chipset, if this works for you then post what stick your using to let others know.

Ok here we go, first up open the terminal and enter;

$ lsusb


now we should see either

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 15a4: 9015


or

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 15a4: 9016


in our results, if you see either of these then you can use this tutorial to get your TV up an running in ubuntu.

Now we are going to install all programs and libraries needed to compile the drivers to make our usb stick work.

In the terminal enter;

$ sudo apt-get install mercurial linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential gcc make


Now we'll download and install the Firmware;

$ wget http://www.otit.fi/~crope/v4l-dvb/af9015/af9015_firmware_cutter/firmware_files/4.95.0/dvb-usb-af9015.fw


Onced downloaded we need to move this file into our kernel folder in the directory /lib/firmware/YourKernalNumber-generic , to do this enter;

$ sudo cp dvb-usb-af9015.fw /lib/firmware/$(uname -r)


Now we will download the drivers by entering into the terminal;

$ hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb


Once finished enter;

$ cd v4l-dvb


Now we will compile and install the drivers by entering;

$ make && sudo make install


Now to load the module at the begining of each session we need to edit the modules file by entering;

$ sudo gedit /etc/modules


now add;

dvb-usb-af9015


at the end of the file and save and close it.

probe dvb module;

$ sudo modprobe dvb-usb-af9015


Now you dvb-t stick should be working but if its not reboot the system and when its reloaded your dvb-t stick will be working.

:)

Updated 8/1/2009: changed the hg clone source and added a diffrent firmware

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, I am running ubuntu ibex and I also have the geniatech dvb-t stick. I followed your very clear instructions and all went without hitch. I re-booted and noticed the light on the stick hasn't lit. Anyway, I started kaffeine but I got a message saying "can't bind info socket." I am new to this, and the only thing I can see is when I type "lsusb I get the 9016 number. Any ideas?

Anonymous said...

Update, I rebooted and it's now working! I now have to just fathom out how to use Kaffeine. Thanks again I couldn't have done this without your how-to.

Mark Gormley said...

Glad i could help mate, iv noticed that when i first boot my pc i sometimes have to unplug the dvb-t stick then plug it back in to get it recognized but i think thats just a firmware problem hopefully there will be better firmare released in the future to solve this, also if you'v installed mythtv the backend takes control of your card at the boot up and kaffeine wont be able to see your card so you need to run "sudo killall mythbackend" in the terminal before you start kaffiene in order for it to see your card.

Jamie said...

I have installed a Leadtek DTV2000 DS with this guide and tuned the channel in with Kaffeine, all seemd to go great until I rebooted and now I don't have anything working again, I edited /etc/modules and added the dvb-usb-af9015 line as required and I tried to sudo modprobe dvb-usb-af9015 from the terminal again and received the error message FATAL: Module dvb_usb_af9015 not found.
Any ideas what is happening here?
Thanks

Jamie

Mark Gormley said...

Hia jamie its been a while since i set mine up but try copying the firmware file to

$ sudo cp dvb-usb-af9015.fw /lib/firmware/

instead of using

$ sudo cp dvb-usb-af9015.fw /lib/firmware/$(uname -r)

i think that those setting have changed since i set mine up, can you let me know if that works and ill update the blog thanks, also try unpluging you dvb-t usb stick and pluging it back in and see if that helps i noticed i had to do that sometimes but by the sounds of things i think its probably just the dvb-usb-af9015.fw file thats in the wrong folder.

Jamie said...

Mark,

Thanks for the reply. It was my fault this didn't work I was installing this while installing linuxmce of course linuxmce updated the kernel during installation so completing this guide after rebooting from the linuxmce install worked a treat.

Thanks again for your help.