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NOTE: AS OF KERNEL 2.6.14 I AM NO LONGER PRODUCING KERNEL PATCHES FOR DXR3-BASED CARDS. The reason for this is that there is simply no longer any need for them. I started doing this early on in the life of the 2.6 kernel when the better known drivers on sourceforge.net did not yet support this kernel version.
The "official" drivers have now caught up with things. Even the quirks of the latest 2.6.14 kernels, which I had difficulty working around while trying (and failing) to update the drivers on which I worked as from April 2004, have been addressed.
So, in short, these drivers do the job perfectly well and everyone might as well use them. I'm now using them on my machine running a 2.6.15 kernel.
Even though I'll no longer be maintaining this project, I'll leave the page up for those who still wish to use this work for their kernel versions 2.6.5 to 2.6.13.4.
As new versions of the em8300 drivers and new kernels are released, I'll be providing patches against the Linux kernel which you can use to provide support for your Creative Labs DXR3 or Sigma Designs Hollywood+ MPEG2 decoder card.
I only started doing this recently so patches are not available for kernels older than 2.6.5. This work is based on that of Jon Burgess, which is available at http://www.jburgess.uklinux.net, so nothing's to stop you grabbing the original patch against the 2.6.0test9 kernel, building a patch for an earlier version than 2.6.5 and submitting it to me.
NB: Patches for kernel versions 2.6.7 and later modify the EXTRAVERSION variable in the Makefile contained in the kernel source tree's root. The kernel version becomes "2.6.x-em8300". Addendum: as of kernel 2.6.12 I stopped this rather pointless change. If you want to change the kernel extraversion then you can do so from within the kernel configuration itself (make menuconfig).
Anyway, enough waffle. This is what I have so far:
Kernel version Download Kernel versions 2.6.13.1-4 are identical to 2.6.13 in the areas where the em8300 and related drivers come into play. You can therefore use the patch for the 2.6.13 kernel for these kernel versions. 2.6.13
Released: 30-AUG-2005bzip2 36101 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42734 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature Kernel versions 2.6.12.1-2.6.12.5 are identical to 2.6.12 in the areas where the em8300 and related drivers come into play. You can therefore use the patch for the 2.6.12 kernel for these kernel versions. 2.6.12
Released: 19-JUN-2005bzip2 36093 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42740 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.11.9
Released: 12-MAY-2005bzip2 36205 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42897 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature The 2.6.11.1 kernel is a bugfix to the 2.6.11 kernel, which had a couple of problems with raid6 on ppc machines and with keyboards on Dell ia64 laptops. The DXR3 patch to the 2.6.11.1 kernel is virtually identical to the patch for the 2.6.11 kernel and has simply undergone a minor tweak so that the patch applies cleanly.
2.6.11.2 is a bugfix which fixes potentially more serious problems for filesystems. While an update to kernel 2.6.11.1 isn't important if you were using neither of the affected architectures, an upgrade to 2.6.11.2 is adviseable.2.6.11.2
Released: 09-MAR-2005bzip2 36190 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42901 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.11.1
Released: 09-MAR-2005bzip2 36208 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42901 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.11
Released: 04-MAR-2005bzip2 36190 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42890 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.10
Released: 25-DEC-2004bzip2 36099 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42765 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.9
Released: 20-OCT-2004bzip2 36161 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42829 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature Note that the 2.6.8.1 kernel was a bugfix to the 2.6.8 kernel, which had serious NFS problems. Given that this patch doesn't go anywhere near NFS code the chances are that it'll patch the 2.6.8 source with no problems. However, if you do use NFS on your system you would be well advised to use the 2.6.8.1 kernel instead. 2.6.8.1
Released: 15-AUG-2004bzip2 36145 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42835 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.7
Released: 18-JUN-2004bzip2 36212 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42945 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.6
Released: 10-MAY-2004bzip2 36141 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42836 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature 2.6.5
Released: 25-APR-2004bzip2 36237 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature gzip 42958 bytes MD5 GnuPG signature My GnuPG public key is available here: pubkey.txt
How to patch the kernel (obviously, replace occurrances of <version> below with the real version of the Linux kernel on which you're working):
1) Unpack the patch you downloaded. You will end up with a file called em8300-patch-linux-<version>. Save this patch in your /usr/src directory.
2) Unpack the vanilla kernel tarball, also in your /usr/src directory, which will result in a linux-<version> directory under /usr/src.
3) cd into the Linux source directory and apply the patch:
- cd linux-<version>
- patch -p1 < ../em8300-patch-linux-<version>
Your kernel is now patched. You can configure and build it as usual, and you'll find entries for the Hollywood+/DXR3 under Device Drivers >> Multimedia devices.
Note that this patch does exactly what it "says on the tin": it provides the kernel with the software needed to access the DXR3-based card. It does not create the device nodes required in /dev nor does it upload the chip's firmware. Refer to the instructions on the official homepage on sourceforge.net for related instructions. Read from here onwards.
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