TBS 6981 after upgrade to Kernel 3.0.0

Well,

as a linux users with a good background in security I do update and upgrade my mythbuntu box on a regular basis. Even if it's an private LAN - there are more vulnerable clients in the same LAN and they could be used as a hop to attack the mythtv box.

So, after a nice

apt-get dist-upgrade

to migrate to mythbuntu 11.10 I suddenly had Kernel 3.0.0 in use. Bad karma for my two lovely, rock solid Technotrend S3200 DVB-S2 cards. Both cards could not lock on a transponder anymore, LiveTV was gone. Within the status field on mythfrontend the transponder status became

Tl__

for about 15 seconds and then mythtv complained about a missing lock.


According to http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TechnoTrend_TT-budget_S2-3200#Card_only_rarely_locks_onto_any_transponder this is a known bug. Comments about the TT S3200 card were bad and I was not in the mood to re-compile a stock mythbuntu kernel.

So I searched for alternatives and found the http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TBS_6980/6981 TBS 6981 card, judging by comments the best DVB-S2 card available. And it has a PCIe interface and twin tuners - awesome!

Purchased on Amazon, delivered next day. Installation quite straightforward:

1. Copy linux drivers from http://www.tbsdtv.com/english/Download.html
2. Transfer to mythtv box into /tmp
3. mkdir TBS6981 && cd TBS6981
4. unzip ../linux-tbs-drivers-111118.zip
5. tar -xvjf linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2
6. cd linux-tbs-drivers
7. ./v4l/tbs-x86_r3.sh (for I32 Kernel 3.0.0)
8. make
9. make install
10. reboot

Great - 5 minutes of work. mythtv worked out of the box without any changes on the backend.

Best thing: the new TBS 6981 card is way more sensitive than the Technotrend S2-3200! Signal quality increased from 2% to 76%, SNR ratio from 2.0 dB to 4.8dB. What a good buy!

If you wonder about the small numbers with the TT S2 3200 card - I am using a tiny Selfsat dish.

Summary: Perfect card. Ultimate recommendation.