Winfast 2000 XP RM on Ubuntu

Leadtek. Winfast. 2000. XP. RM. It works, finally.

Leadtek is quite a bitch when it comes to drivers for Linux, they’re even bitchier than ATI. But thanks to video4linux, you can have an infusion of the degrading racist capitalist infested press on your very own Ubuntu Linux.

I use kdetv, but the procedure is similar to other applications as well. I’m using Feisty, but this should work up to Dapper at least (I know this because I got it working on Dapper and Edgy back when they were released).

The settings here are confirmed to work in Romania, with the Romanian cable providers. This guide is mainly targeted at n00bs, for the rest of the visitors: card=34 tuner=56 radio=0

Step 1
Activate direct rendering

For this we’ll need to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. I usually edit files with mcedit but if you’re a lazy ass, and a GUI user, press Alt+F2 and type in

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and check the “Run in terminal” option.

Now scroll to the “Module” section and just before it ends add

Load "v4l"

Ok, cool. Save the file and restart X. You can typically do this by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Backspace. Be careful not to have any documents unsaved or the like, because it won’t ask you if you want to save them, it will take you straight to the login screen.

Step 2
Insert the module in the kernel

You’re so badass now that you’re going to insert a module in the kernel. Too bad it only consists of typing a line and even a lobotomized roach could do it. You do this by opening a terminal (Alt + F2 and type “gnome-terminal”) and typing:

sudo modprobe bttv card=34 tuner=56 radio=0

You rule.

Step 3
Install kdetv

In the main menu select “Applications” > “Add Remove”, type in kdetv, select the checkbox and click “Apply”. Damn that’s fast.

If the kdetv does not appear in the “Sound & Video” section of the main menu, you will have to add it manually, or if you’re confortable with that, start it with kdetv from a terminal. For the icon, see below.

Step 4
Configure kdetv

Start kdetv. If you are not presented with the channel wizard start it up from “Channels” > “Channel Wizard”.

You can uncheck the “Get station names from VBI” option. After pressing next select “television” as source, and “PAL” as encoding. As for the scanning type, select “Import and scan for a predefined channel list”. Press “next” again and select east-europe at the frequency table selection dropdown. Press “next”, sit back and relax. It should find your channels right away.

You may need to manually adjust some of them to get rid of some of the static, do that by right clicking the channel and selecting “edit”. If you have no sound open the mixer and play with the aux/line in volume. Mine was aux.

Step 5
Add the module to modules.conf

Yes, I i know, there is no modules.conf. The modules to be loaded are now located in /etc/modules.d/. You will need to create a new file in that directory, so go ahead, press Alt + F2, type in gnome-terminal. In this teminal type

sudo gedit /etc/modules.d/bttv

and add on its first line the following: bttv card=34 tuner=56 radio=0.

Save the file and close gedit, get back to the terminal and run sudo update-modules. That’s it, the kernel driver will be automatically loaded from now on.

Adding a shortcut for kdetv

For some reason, after installing kdetv it did not show up in my main menu. No problem, it can be done manually. For this go to “System” > “Preferences” > “Main menu” and select “New item”. In the command text field type /usr/bin/kdetv. Add an icon for this shortcut from /usr/share/icons/hicolor/32x32/apps/kdetv.png. Click OK and you’re done.

That’s pretty much it. Hope this helps.

This wiki may be useful: http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Main_Page