<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<HEAD>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<TITLE>LIRC - Linux Infrared Remote Control</TITLE>
<LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="lirc.css">
<LINK REL="shortcut icon" HREF="../images/favicon.ico">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="LIRC - Linux Infrared Remote Control">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="linux remote control, multimedia">
<META charset="UTF-8">
</HEAD>
<body>
<TABLE CLASS="menu"><TR>
<TD CLASS="menu"><IMG class="menuimg" SRC="../images/diode.gif" ALT="LIRC icon" ALIGN="LEFT"></TD>
<TD><IMG class="menuimg" SRC="../images/lirc.gif" ALT="LIRC logo" ALIGN="RIGHT"></TD>
</TR></TABLE>
<a name="general"></a><hr>
<h1>About this chapter</h1>
<!-- Dependencies +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<p>
This chapter describes how to build and install LIRC. Note that LIRC
is packaged for all major linux distributions. If you
just want to use lirc, you should be able to install it like any
other package. This way, you don't have to look at the
dependencies, build and installation description found here.</p>
<p>
The ./configure script is the ultimate source as to what libraries
and tools LIRC requires. The list here is not complete in any way,
being focused on things to install before building.</p>
<a name="dependencies"></a><hr>
<h1>Dependencies</h1>
<p>
<b>Mandatory dependencies</b>
</p>
<p>
There are a few mandatory dependencies, all of which
packaged on most (all?) Linux distributions.
</p>
<ul>
<li>Building directly from the git source tree requires
<em>autoconf</em>,<em>automake</em> and
<em>libtool</em>.</li>
<li>Compilation and linking requires the GNU toolchain
including <em>make</em>, <em>gcc</em>, <em>g++</em>
and <em>ld</em>.</li>
<li>python3 </li>
<li>Building requires <em>pkg-config</em>.</li>
<li>xsltproc </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Optional dependencies</b></p>
If these are missing, ./configure can cope with it and still
build LIRC in a more or less limited way.
<ul>
<li>On linux building requires <em>modinfo</em>, often in the
package kmod. Without modinfo, all kernel drivers are excluded
from the build.</li>
<li>On Linux building requires kernel headers, often in the
kernel-headers package. Building without these is possible,
but strongly discouraged (on linux).</li>
<li>Several scripts need the python3 PyYaml at
http://pyyaml.org/wiki/PyYAML. Some distributions includes a
python3-yaml package. There is also a pypi package at
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/PyYAML. Building without
this is possible but not recommended.</li>
<li>Generating the HTML manpages requires man2html. </li>
<li>Generating the API documentation requires Doxygen. </li>
<li>The Python bindings needs python 3.5+ to enable all
functionality. Other python3 version should work, but
will limit the python bindings API.</li>
<li>The <em>lirc-setup</em> GUI configuration tool
needs python3-gi and thus also the Gtk
libs and icons. These are not required for the build, though. </li>
<li>Building the X11 GUI tools like <em>irxevent</em> and
<em>xmode2</em> requires the X11 header files. </li>
<li> The audio drivers needs the alsa and portaudio libs
(libraries and headers). </li>
<li>
The <em>ftdi</em> and <em>ftdix</em> drivers require libftdi from
<a href="http://www.intra2net.com/de/produkte/opensource/ftdi/">
http://www.intra2net.com/de/produkte/opensource/ftdi/</a>
</li>
</ul>
<a name="kernel"></a>
<hr>
<h1>Kernel</h1>
<p>
As of 0.9.0+, lirc uses the kernel modules from the
kernel. Some of these are formerly lirc modules which are
now part of the kernel. Thus, building lirc does not involve
building any kernel modules (as it used to). </p>
<p>
Some of the former lirc modules are part of the official kernel
and should be available on any reasonably updated system. However,
some are in the staging area; if they are part of your kernel
depends on the distro you use (unless of course if you compile
your own kernel).</p>
<p>
There are example and test kernel modules in the drivers/
directory. None of these are required for regular LIRC use, but
they are supposed to be helpful while testing or writing drivers.</p>
<!-- Compiling +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<a name="compile"></a><hr>
<h1>Compile and Install</h1>
<p>
Since 0.9.1+ , lirc loads drivers dynamically. This means that
that the build system is redesigned to always build all drivers.
The former setup.sh script is dropped in favor of a standard
./configure, make, make install sequence.
</p>
<p>
When building directly from git, a first required step to
create ./configure and some other files is </p>
<pre>
./autogen.sh
</pre>
Whether using git sources or just using a distributed tarball, the
next steps are the canonical
<pre>
./configure
make
sudo make install
</pre>
Notes:
<ul>
<li>
When running the configure script, please pay attention at its
output. Specifically, at the very end it prints a list of
the enabled functionality.</li>
<li>
Running configure without options will install lirc in /usr/local
according to GNU standards. However, many examples in this manual
as well as other documentation are assuming that ./configure ran
with the <em>--prefix=/usr</em> option, installing in /etc/lirc,
/usr/bin etc.</li>
<li>
When cross-compiling, the configure script cannot use the defaults
determined from the build host. Hence, cross-compiling requires a
close look to the <i>./configure --help</i> output which have some
hints for this.</li>
<li>
The build system supports VPATH builds which does not
clutter the source tree. To use this do something like:
<pre>
mkdir _build; cd _build;
../configure
make
sudo make install
</pre>
</li>
</ul>
<a name="check"></a><hr>
<h1>Checking the build</h1>
Since the dynamic drivers are not linked during the build, it's
recommended to check that the expected drivers are built and can
be loaded using
<pre>
cd tools; ./lirc-lsplugins -U ../plugins/.libs
</pre>
<p>
Is some cases, lirc-lsplugins will crash on missing libraries e. g.,
<em>liblirc.so.0</em>. If so, you need to add the path where lirc
installs it's libraries (by default, /usr/local/lib) to the runtime
linker path. Refer to generic ld.so(1) documentation.</p>
<p>
With working paths lirc-lsplugins will create a list of all drivers
available, and also possible link errors not revealed during the build.
<em>lirc-lsplugins</em> has a <em> -h</em> option providing help, and
<em> nroff -man ../doc/man/lirc-lsplugins.1 | more </em>
provides more complete info.</p>
<p>
The test/ directory contains some (but too few) unit tests. Compiling
these requires the <em>cppunit</em> library from
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/cppunit. <em>cppunit</em> is
packaged in most linux distribtutions. With this in place,
do:</p>
<pre>
$ cd test
$ make
$ ./run-tests
</pre>
<p>
From 0.10.0, the python-pkg has some traditional unittests. These
tests requires the <em>socat</em> and <em>expect</em> packages, both of
which packaged for major linux distributions. The python version
needs to be 3.5+. To invoke: </p>
<pre>
$ cd python-pkg/tests
$ python3 -m unittest discover
</pre>
<!-- Install LIRC ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<a name="configuration"></a><hr>
<h1>Configuration</h1>
<p>
Formerly, lirc was configured during build where the setup.sh script
was used to select driver, configuration file, etc. Also, there was
little support for starting and running the services from boot. From
0.9.1+ the configuration is instead done after the build. The
configuration steps for the main lircd program involves:
</p>
<ul>
<li> In some cases e. g., serial devices setting up kernel module
options in /etc/modprobe.d or using udev rules. </li>
<li> Selecting the driver and kernel device for your capture
device.</li>
<li> Selecting configuration file for your remote.</li>
<li> Configuring and using systemd to run the services. </li>
<li> Creating lircrc files for your applications.</li>
</ul>
<p>
This is described in the <a href="configuration-guide.html">
configuration guide</a>.</p>
<!-- Uninstall LIRC ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<a name="uninstall"></a><hr>
<h1>Uninstall</h1>
<ul>
<li>Remove the installed artifacts:<br>
<br>
<em>make uninstall</em><br>
<br>
</li>
<li>Remove the config files, if you don't need them anymore:<br>
<br>
<em>rm -rf /etc/lirc/</em><br>
<em>rm -f ~/.config/lircrc</em><br>
<br>
You might also want to check /etc/modprobe.d for left-overs.
</li>
</ul>
<a name="updating"></a><hr>
<h1>Updating from older versions</h1>
<p>
The <a href="NEWS.txt">NEWS</a> file describes the changes since last
version. Normally, upgrading from a previous version should not be too
painful. However, if you have to update a really old version it's probably
better to make a fresh install.
</p>
<p class="footer">
[<A HREF="http://www.lirc.org/">LIRC homepage</A>]
</p>
</body>
</html>
