IBM Thinkpad T40 IRDA Howto

This document outlines how to get the IRDA working with Ubuntu 5.04 and the FIR driver.

Pre-requisites

1) Install the irda-utils package from the universe repository

sudo apt-get install irda-utils

2) Install the setserial package

sudo apt-get install setserial

3) Ensure infrared is enabled in your BIOS - if not, enable it and reboot.

Configuration

1) Modify /etc/default/irda-utils

sudo vi /etc/default/irda-utils

• change the line reading:

DEVICE="/dev/ttyS1"

• to:

DEVICE="irda0"

• then change the line reading:

SETSERIAL=""

• to:

SETSERIAL="/dev/ttyS1"

2) Edit /etc/modprobe.d/irda-utils

sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/irda-utils

• add the following two lines to the end of the file:

alias irda0 nsc-ircc
options nsc-ircc dongle_id=0x09

3) Edit /etc/modules

sudo vi /etc/modules

• add the ircomm-tty module to the modules to be loaded at boot time. Add the following line to the end of the file:

ircomm-tty

Use

Re-starting irda:

sudo /etc/init.d/irda-utils stop
sudo /etc/init.d/irda-utils start

Loading the FIR IRDA driver:

sudo modprobe irda0

Loading the ircomm-tty module:

sudo modprobe ircomm-tty

Testing operation

Output from dmesg should look something like:

nsc-ircc, Found chip at base=0x02e
nsc-ircc, driver loaded (Dag Brattli)
IrDA: Registered device irda0
nsc-ircc, Using dongle: IBM31T1100 or Temic TFDS6000/TFDS6500
irlap_change_speed(), setting speed to 9600

If you put a mobile phone or something with an IR interface in front of the IR receiver on your laptop, the IR daemon should pick it up. You can confirm by running:

cat /proc/net/irda/discovery

Example output from this:

IrLMP: Discovery log:

nickname: LGE U8xxx, hint: 0x9124, saddr: 0x00bfb934, daddr: 0x000034f6

Confirm the link is up using irdaping:

happy@nirvana:/etc/default$ sudo irdaping 0x000034f6
IrDA ping (0x000034f6 on irda0): 32 bytes
32 bytes from 0x000034f6: irda_seq=0 time=110.12 ms.
32 bytes from 0x000034f6: irda_seq=1 time=110.15 ms.

Another useful tool to see if things are up and running is irdadump.

User applications

Gnome Phone Manager (http://usefulinc.com/software/phonemgr/) works using IRDA to send/receive SMS messages via phones. It has been tested using a Nokia 6610 and LG U8138 phone via the setup as described in this document. Install this application from the universe repository:

sudo apt-get install gnome-phone-manager