Using The Gyration Media Center Remote With Linux

Bruce Perens writes "The Gyration Media Center Remote is a radio keyboard and mouse with 100-foot range. The mouse uses an accelerometer rather than a mouse wheel, and thus has the unique feature that you can make mouse gestures in the air. The mouse should be perfect for a public speaker who wants to move around during a speech, without giving up control of his laptop. It would also make a nifty remote for a Linux PVR user, since it has VCR controls and channel and volume buttons. But does it work with Linux?" Bruce Perens tried it out and says the answer is a qualified Yes.

Comments

Computers, BAH

[anum]

How often have we seen this:
"And the good news is that a properly-configured Linux system will work with the device. But it took me a while to figure out that my system wasn't configured properly."

And this is BRUCE PERENS for goodness sake! If he can't get it right who can? I realise that he did figure it out but it sounds like it was frustrating and I can imagine how much more frustrating it would be for someone who doesn't understand the system as well as he does. NOTE: I said THE SYSTEM not Linux!

I just had an issue with an old flatbed scanner on WinXP for instance. It works fine on the system it usually stays on but refuses to work on my new laptop or any other system. I'm sure that "my system wasn't configured properly." And if I knew what to change it would work.

On the other hand, I have several remotes including two from http://www.hometheatermaster.com/ which have always worked flawlessly with all kinds of consumer equipment. TVs, Radios, DVD players you name it. They just work. When will PCs catch up? I don't care if it runs MS or Linux or BSD (though open source is prefered) if it just works it will be an improvement. Maybe it's time to try Apple after all?

I'm glad he got it to work but from the quote above I doubt that I could. The plus side of Linux and open source in general is that I could probably find someone to help me out but it's not guaranteed.

Oh well, I guess that scanner thing annoyed me more than I thought! Sorry for the rant.

Re:Computers, BAH

[iabervon]

You're right to fault the communication rather than the documentation. The 2.6.4 config help for CONFIG_USB_MOUSE (which gives usbmouse) says "If even remotely unsure, say N." The help for CONFIG_USB_HID says "If unsure, say Y." Once you say what the problem is, it's trivial to find why it's wrong, but finding the solution in the first place is difficult (especially if the symptom is "basic mouse functionality works, but not more"). It's particularly difficult to realize that you're doing something wrong when the answer used to be that Linux didn't support the extra features.

As for improving the communication, it would be nice if information could be used in checking over installers out of the kernel documentation. Since people tend to say M for everything possible, it would be really nice if there were a way to get from a module name to the help for it, and also get the suggestion automatically. Then you could take a module list and say, "Is there anything discouraged that I'm loading? Is there anything encouraged that I'm not loading?"