What is Lit9

Lit9 is an open source human computer interface; its main goal is to interact with a Linux system using a standard TV remote control as an input device.
It is based on LIRC and it uses standard Xlib native functions to simulate mouse and keyboard (by means of predictive text technology) on the X Window System.
It currently works on Ubuntu 9.x/10.x; it is tested with a standard MCE Kit (remote control and receiver) and with a generic remote control (Toshiba_CT-90287-TV), with USB-UIRT2 as receiver.

Software requirements

To compile and run the current version of LIT 9 you should have Ubuntu 9.04, 9.10, 10.04 or 10.10.
The main packages and libraries you need to install are:

dialog
libqt4-dev
libqt4-core
libqt4-gui
libsqlite3-dev
lirc

The command you have to write in the shell to do everything in only one instruction is:

    sudo apt-get install dialog libqt4-dev libqt4-core libqt4-gui libsqlite3-dev lirc

Or if there are any kind of problems:

    sudo apt-get install dialog
    sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev
    sudo apt-get install libqt4-core
    sudo apt-get install libqt4-gui
    sudo apt-get install libsqlite3-dev
    sudo apt-get install lirc

Other files needed

Inside /usr/share/lirc/ you have the configuration files of all remote controls you can use with lirc. We tested our system on a generic MCE (Windows Media Center) remote control with its relative receiver.
The configuration of the buttons we used is easily reachable with this path:

     gedit /usr/share/lirc/remotes/mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb

To use it you have to edit a file called hardware.conf:

     gedit /etc/lirc/hardware.conf

which must looks like this:

TRANSMITTER="Microsoft Windows Media Center V2 (usb) : Direct TV Receiver"
TRANSMITTER_MODULES="lirc_dev mceusb"
TRANSMITTER_DRIVER=""
TRANSMITTER_DEVICE=""
TRANSMITTER_SOCKET=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_CONF="directtv/general.conf"
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_ARGS=""
START_LIRCD="true"
START_LIRCMD=""
LOAD_MODULES=""
LIRCMD_CONF=""
FORCE_NONINTERACTIVE_RECONFIGURATION="false"
REMOTE="Windows Media Center Transceivers/Remotes (all)"
REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_dev mceusb"
REMOTE_DRIVER=""
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
REMOTE_SOCKET=""
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF="mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb"
REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS=""

If you want you can download this file and the one used for Toshiba_CT-90287-TV remote control with USB-UIRT2 as receiver you can visit: LiT9 Wiki

A simple test

To test if everithing goes well you only have to connect the receiver to your computer and write this in the shell:

name@pc-name:~$ irw

now if you press any button on the remote control you should see something like this:

  name@pc-name:~$ 000000037ff07bfe 00 One mceusb
  name@pc-name:~$ 000000037ff07bfd 00 Two mceusb
  name@pc-name:~$ 000000037ff07bfc 00 Three mceusb
  ..............................................

Source

The homepage of LiT 9 hosted on google code is at this link http://code.google.com/p/lit9/

Donwload and Install

Last stable version tested and the user manual are available on: Download section

To extract files:

name@pc-name:~$ tar xvzf lit9_vX.X.tar.gz
name@pc-name:~$ cd lit9_vX.X

To compile LIT9:

name@pc-name:~/lit9_vX.X$ qmake -project

name@pc-name:~/lit9_vX.X$ qmake

At this point you have to open the Makefile:

name@pc-name:~/lit9_vX.X$ gedit Makefile

and modify a line before saving it:

LIBS          = $(SUBLIBS)  -L/usr/lib -lQtGui -lQtCore -lpthread 
LIBS          = $(SUBLIBS)  -L/usr/lib -lQtGui -lQtCore -lpthread -lX11 -lsqlite3

Make and run LIT9:

name@pc-name:~/lit9_vX.X$ make

name@pc-name:~/lit9_vX.X$ ./lit9_vX.X

Notes

With other remote controls and receivers you have to download the lirc package which is on: http://www.lirc.org/ and also to see which is the right configuration for your system.
Read the INSTALL file inside the package to start the configuration. The main variable you have to set are:

REMOTE_MODULES (modules to let your receiver talk with your pc)
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF (where is the configuration of your remote control)

About us

The software is taken from a student project, it is developed at the University of Messina (Italy), Faculty of Engineering by students enrolled in Master Studies in Computer Engineering and supervised by Visilab (Computer Vision and Human Computer Interaction Laboratory).

Contact us

Davide Mulfari: davidemulfari@gmail.com
Nicola Peditto: n.peditto@gmail.com
Carmelo Romeo: carmelo.romeo85@gmail.com
Fabio Verboso: fabio.verboso@gmail.com