The nsc-ircc kernel module needs a patch to work, which you can download at http://shamrock.dyndns.org/~ln/linux/.

To apply the patch go to the root directory of the kernel source code and issue

patch -p1 < /path/to/downloaded/nsc-ircc-pnp.2.6.12.diff

After that you have to recompile and install the kernel as described on the kernel configuration page.

To use the infrared transmitter (it's located at the front, which is a rather unpractical placement IMO) it's necessary to install the irda-utils with

apt-get install irda-utils

The configuration of the irda-utils Debian package takes place in /etc/default/irda-utils and get filled in via questions asked by debconf at installation time. I use the following settings:

ENABLE="true"
DISCOVERY="true"
DEVICE="irda0"
DONGLE="none"
SETSERIAL=""

As stated in /usr/share/doc/irda-utils/README.Debian to use Fast-Infrared (FIR) it's necessary to disable the Serial-Infrared (SIR) part of the system, so I disabled loading the SIR kernel modules by adding them to /etc/hotplug/blacklist:

# ignore serial irda drivers
irtty_sir
sir_dev
irda

After that it's necessary to tell the system which kernel module to load for the irda0 device, that is done by putting the following lines into /etc/modprobe.d/irda-utils:

alias irda0 nsc-ircc
options nsc-ircc dongle_id=0x09 io=0x2f8 irq=3
install nsc-ircc /bin/setserial /dev/ttyS1 uart none port 0 irq 0; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install nsc-ircc

Stop the irda-utils with

/etc/init.d/irda-utils stop

and then make sure the SIR modules are not loaded anymore (use lsmod and if they're still loaded use rmmod to remove them). Then start the irda-utils again with

/etc/init.d/irda-utils start

The nsc-ircc module should get loaded automatically and the irattach program should be setting up the infrared device irda0. Check /var/log/syslog, it should look similar to this:

Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p kernel: pnp: Device 00:0a activated.
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p kernel: nsc-ircc, Found chip at base=0x000
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p kernel: nsc-ircc, driver loaded (Dag Brattli)
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p kernel: IrDA: Registered device irda0
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p kernel: nsc-ircc, Using dongle: IBM31T1100 or Temic TFDS6000/TFDS6500
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p irattach: executing: 'echo t43p > /proc/sys/net/irda/devname'
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p irattach: executing: 'echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/irda/discovery'
Sep 17 14:43:10 t43p irattach: Starting device irda0

After that it's possible for example to use infrared communication to sync a Palm PDA or to access a mobile phone via gnokii or gammu. See the Linux Infrared Howto for more information.

I actually don't like the irda-utils to be started automatically at boot time since I very seldomly use infrared communcations, so I removed the symbolic link /etc/rc2.d/S20irda-utils (because I use runlevel 2 as my default runlevel, which is the standard configuration in Debian, use the appropriate rcX.d directory for your runlevel). Instead I'm using the following script (I called it toggle_irda) to toggle the irda-port on and off:

#!/bin/sh
PIDFILE="/var/run/irattach.pid"

if [ -f $PIDFILE ]
then
        /etc/init.d/irda-utils stop > /dev/null
else
        /etc/init.d/irda-utils start > /dev/null
fi

It checks whether the irda-utils are currently running and either starts or stops them. The scripts gets started when pressing Fn+F8, see the Special Keys page for details.

Attachment	Size
nsc-ircc-pnp.2.6.12.diff	5.03 KB