Step by step guide to install tbs6980/tbs6981 on linux. (Updated)

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Step by step guide to install tbs6980/tbs6981 on linux. (Updated)

TBS6980 and TBS6981 are one of the best DVB-S/S2 PCI-E cards in the market with full linux support. Here I'll describe how to install a couple of them (up to 10 cards)

Peter Mitrell has written a good intro to install TBS6980/6981 on Ubuntu 11.04. I didn't test it yet but you can follow it on HowTo install the TBS 6980 / 6981 on Ubuntu 11.04 (Kernel 2.6.38-8)

Installation steps:

Ensure that you have installed following packages:
- Kernel Sources
- gcc
- rar
- tar
- gzip
Download the updated driver from: http://www.tbsdtv.com/english/Download.html
Create an empty folder (eg. TBS6980)

mkdir TBS6980

Change path to the new directory

cd TBS6980

Unrar the driver

unrar e /path/to/driver/linux-s2api-tbs6980-#_#######.rar

Unzip the base driver

tar xjvf linux-s2api-tbs6980_1.tar.bz2

Change directory to the driver path

cd linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l

Based in your OS architecture do one of these:
- On x86 (32 bit):
- On x86_64/AMD64 (64 bit):
To use more than 4 cards edit following files:

On dvbdev.h file, change DVB_MAX_ADAPTERS to 16
On config-compat.h file, change CONFIG_DVB_MAX_ADAPTERS to 64

Compile the driver and install it

cd ..; make; make install

Install the firmware

cd /path/to/driver/

cp v4l-cx23885-######.fw /lib/firmware

Reboot to load the driver

reboot

After reboot you must have installed up to 2 * CardNumber adapters in /dev/dvb

ls /dev/dvb

This entry was posted on February 23rd, 2011 at 03:24:00 pm by Mehran and is filed under Technology, Linux, Driver. Tags: driver, linuxtv, tbs6980, tbs6981

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16 comments, 2 trackbacks

Comment from: jim [Visitor]

hi, i think you have a typo in this line:

ln -s tbs6981ctrl.o.x86_64 tbs6980ctrl.o

it should be:

ln -s tbs6981ctrl.o.x86_64 tbs6981ctrl.o

other than that, thanks!
jim

03/16/11 @ 15:52

Comment from: Mehran [Member]

Thanks for your comment I have fix it.

03/16/11 @ 20:22

Comment from: Dick Ruck [Visitor]

I have followed this exactly, including copying your links. However I get the following warnings during MAKE:

WARNING: could not find /home/dick/source/linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l/.tbs6980ctrl.o.cmd for /home/dick/source/linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l/tbs6980ctrl.o
WARNING: could not find /home/dick/source/linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l/.tbs6980fe_driver.o.cmd for /home/dick/source/linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l/tbs6980fe_driver.o
WARNING: could not find /home/dick/source/linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l/.tbs6981fe_driver.o.cmd for /home/dick/source/linux-s2api-tbs6980_1/v4l/tbs6981fe_driver.o

Any ideas please?

Thanks

Dick

03/24/11 @ 11:24

Comment from: Mehran [Member]

@Dick Ruck

I think you have missed or wrong done the symlink step. Also make sure to download the driver specified Not any other driver.

03/26/11 @ 08:39

Comment from: Frank [Visitor]

Please add a warning right at the beginning of your post: THE CARD DRIVERS ONLY SUPPORTED UP TO 2.6.35-x KERNEL and no higher one (like Ubuntu 11.04) .. i bought that pice of s... and can't compile the driver and i wont use an old kernel ... the vendor support is crap -.-

i bought it because of your guide! same for linuxtv.org ... srsly i am really pissed now!
hope i can return it ...

04/30/11 @ 14:26

Comment from: Mehran [Member]

@Frank
Ubuntu is not a good Linux Distro. I have re-compiled it on OpenSuSE 11.4 with 2.6.37.1-1.2 kernel and works fine.

05/02/11 @ 17:11

Comment from: Martin Gunther [Visitor]

Mehran, I think that saying that linux is not a good linux distro is a very bad thing to say. It makes life easier for a number of people. I am sure that this card can be made to work, but giving these miss leading opinions is not helpful. It is very well used, and well supported. Also based on debian (as you are probably aware), which is a very stable and well supported OS. Yes you might have your personal preferences, but doesn't make Ubuntu a bad distro.

Frank, did you manage to get this card working in Ubuntu on the newer kernels? I will be looking to purchase one soon. Also can you provide more information about your problem? What is your linux experience. You say "I can't install the driver", and show no error messages, etc to help.

Mehran, but thanks for this guide as it is helpful to the community, it's when I see comments like this tho, that makes me a little angry at times!

05/11/11 @ 06:56

Comment from: Mehran [Member]

@Martin Gunther
Thanks for your comment, I said that Ubuntu is not a good Linux distro because I think so. It is a too buggy distro and sometimes makes newbies to forget Linux. I'm in Love with Linux and since 6 years ago I just work with Linux and didn't even install any Micro$oft windows on my machines nor used it. When I see people that fear Linux and then using ubuntu forget Linux forever due to it's bugs makes me angry too.

05/11/11 @ 09:01

Comment from: Psul [Visitor]

thanks for your post

I can confirm that this driver is not working in Ubuntu 11.04; I have been using it successfully on older versions. I use MythTv but would be happy to switch to an alternative Linux TV setup on a different distro. What are you using with your TBS card?

I can not say I am all that impressed with MythTV. The latest problem is that HD live tv seems to drop frames every few seconds even though it was working fine. Things changes when I upgraded to 11.04 even though I am using GRUB to boot into an older kernel....

I am a fan of Linux but sometimes you just want things to work without the hassle.

05/11/11 @ 12:31

Comment from: Mehran [Member]

I'm using TBS6981 in order to receive data not TV but I've tested it on OpenSuSE 11.4 to receive TV channels by Kaffeine.

05/12/11 @ 17:26

Comment from: Peter Mitrell [Visitor]

This comment has been moved to a new post due to formatting restictions: HowTo install the TBS 6980 / 6981 on Ubuntu 11.04 (Kernel 2.6.38-8)

Thanks to Peter Mitrell for his collaboration

05/20/11 @ 22:02

Comment from: Stevellion [Visitor]

This guide doesn't work past 2.6.35.

Follow these other (more complex I'm afraid) instructions on this site.
http://www.buydvb.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=420

I've got it working quite happily on Ubuntu Natty AM4-64 - I like Ubuntu.

05/23/11 @ 20:49

Comment from: Mehran [Member]

@Stevellion: You can find another guide on HowTo install the TBS 6980 / 6981 / 6921 on Ubuntu 11.04 (Kernel 2.6.38-8)

05/24/11 @ 04:23

Trackback from: Proposal Forms [Visitor]

Proposal Forms
Thank you ever so for you blog.Really thank you! Keep writing.

09/12/11 @ 18:31

Comment from: 3d tvs [Visitor]

Thank you so much I was scouring the internet for these codes :)

11/13/11 @ 22:17

Comment from: otupucmia1986 [Visitor]

thanks this is ethical what i was looking on! i am bookmarking this now =-=

12/20/11 @ 00:45

Trackback from: Roy Oman [Visitor]

Roy Oman
This is one awesome blog article. Will read on...

01/15/12 @ 08:06

Comment from: poe101 [Visitor]

Many thanks for taking the time to put this tutorial online Mehran.

For me... Ubuntu rocks, it got me using Linux and I'm not going back :-).

I have just installed an old KWorld DVB-T card on my server and now have DVB-T TV anywhere I want in the house - on 'media' desktop (to large plasma screen), laptop (on wifi) and even a tiny 600MHz asus eeepc (on wifi) all on Ubuntu using Xbmc on the frontends and TVheadend on the server. The little asus can't keep up with the true HD streams but other than that its great. For anyone contemplating something similar (having had success with MythTV for a long time) Xbmc provides a highly polished frontend to TVheadend's simple and apparently reliable (so far) backend.

I'm now looking to expand the channels available by adding a dual DVB-S (or S2). The TBS6981 is attractively priced so I had to check it out and thats where this thread has been very useful to me.

Thanks again.

02/10/12 @ 06:03

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