[krank23]

Yeah, hi... First-time poster here, so be gentle.

I'm trying to put togeather a cheap-o HTPC machine, using spare parts I happened to have lying around and cheap hardware. Since my TV is far from HD, my needs are small.

Anyways, I've gotten myself an extremely cheap IR remote control using an USB dongle. I'm sure most of you know the type.

Now, the catch here is that it sends strange keyboard commands in stead of regular "media button" style keycodes. For instance, pressing play means "Ctrl-Shift-P".

I really, really want to use XBMC - I'm an old X-box modder myself and XBMC has and is everything I need - but I can't seem to find a way to remap stuff... I'm by no means a Linux newbie, but I haven't really had to deal with this kind of problem before.

I figure that I either need to get XBMC to recognize Ctrl, Alt and Shift-modkeys or find a way to remap, for instance, Ctrl-Shift-P to just regular P (or whatever), at least while XBMC runs.

Any pointers or ideas are very welcome.

[dgege]

Hey, I had the same problem, check out my post for a not so elegant solution:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=33339

[d4rk]

You should be able to use xmodmap to remap the keys:

-Using XMODMAP to modify key and mouse actions
-XKeyCaps

[BLKMGK]

Or pop a whopping $23 and shipping on a Microsoft MCE remote and be on the same page as most everyone else. Pretty much PnP on Ubuntu with Lirc IME. Since many of us run the same thing troubleshooting issues should be easier. If you have issues getting the other working this would be a pretty easy path...

[krank23]

Actually, after a few hours of fidgeting and cursing, I emerged victorious, having managed not only to remap the buttons I wanted but also to learn quite a bit about how X handles keyboard commands in the process...

If I'd actually had $23 plus what I imagine would be some truly horrendous shipping costs (they always are, if you live in Sweden...), I might have consiedered it. Not, like I said, I got bugger-all in terms of cash; all I got to use is what I can find in my apartment. For the moment, the HTPC is a 1.5 ghz AMD thingie with 512 RAM and a GeForce FX 5500. Probably not good enough for HD, but since my Tv isn't HD, that's not much of an issue.

Now, to get Ubuntu to realize that the Nvidia card exists and actually works and even has support for OpenGL2.0 (and thus should run XBMC quite nicely)...

Anyways, thank you all for all your good advice, if there's any interest I might write a guide to using xmodmap and weird, cheap-o USB dongle keyboard-emulating remote controls =) Wasn't that hard, once you got the basic idea...

[BLKMGK]

Ah yeah shipping to Sweden would indeed be crazy! Happy to hear you met with success!

[k-pax]

Krank23
I have a simular remote (I think), some of the buttons work. Dmesg shows "USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [HOLTEK YaoCoo]"
I havent really tried to get it to work properly yet, but it would be nice if you decided to write a small guide.

[siDDis]

If you have a Sony Ericcson Cell Phone you probably have a bluetooth based remote control/desktop application on it.
With a cheap Bluetooth dongle you will have a great small remote control

[kbrookes]

If there's any interest I might write a guide to using xmodmap and weird, cheap-o USB dongle keyboard-emulating remote controls =) Wasn't that hard, once you got the basic idea...

Hey mate, I know I'd be interested in a HOW TO on the subject, there seems to be a growing number who would be also.

[pko66]

Hey mate, I know I'd be interested in a HOW TO on the subject, there seems to be a growing number who would be also.

I have one very similar to the YaoCoo (even cheaper... you can have it delvered to your home for less than 7€, even if you live in expensive Sweden! ). I have it working decently right now: http://forum.xbmc.org/showpost.php?p=388...stcount=13

I will investigate dgege's idea for a complete solution...

[kbrookes]

Thanks pko66 - it'd be good to know because many of us can't get LIRC to recognise the remote at all, as is the case with me.

I'd already seen your post previously in my searches, but as IRW returns no data when using the remote (presumably because it's being interpreted as an HID rather than a remote) I wasn't able to re-create its configuration.