[linux-dvb] The status and future of Mantis driver

[Hans Werner]

> Heya!
> 
> I found out that there is some new activity on Manu Abraham's Mantis 
> driver, so I thought I could throw in some thoughts about it.
> 
> I have been using Manu's Mantis driver (http://www.jusst.de/hg/mantis) 
> for over two years now. I have a VP-2033 card (DVB-C) and at least for 
> the last year the driver has worked without any hickups in my daily 
> (VDR) use. For a long time I have thought that the driver should already 
> be merged to the v4l-dvb tree.
> 
> Igor M. Liplianin has created a new tree 
> (http://mercurial.intuxication.org/hg/s2-liplianin) with the description 
> "DVB-S(S2) drivers for Linux". Mantis driver was merged into the tree in 
> October and since then some fixes has also been applied to the driver. 
> Some of these fixes already exist in Manu's tree, some don't. Both trees 
> are missing the remote control support for VP-2033 and VP-2040.

Is s2-liplianin working for you (apart from the remote control support) ?

> Until merging of the driver into s2-liplianin, there was a single tree 
> for the Mantis driver development. Now that there are two trees, I fear 
> that the development could scatter if there's no clear idea how the 
> driver is going to get into v4l-dvb. 

The major difference between the two repositories is that s2-liplianin uses the
S2API (API v5, which has already been released in kernel 2.6.28) and Manu's tree uses
the Multiproto API (which will not be released). So s2-liplianin is much closer to
v4l-dvb and could easily be merged in.  I saw that Igor synchronized with v4l-dvb
just 2 days ago. So s2-liplianin is the main mantis repository. Manu's tree hasn't
been touched for 3 months.

> Also, the driver is not only 
> DVB-S(S2), but it also contains support for VP-2033 (DVB-C), VP-2040 
> (DVB-C) and VP-3030 (DVB-T). DVB-S(S2) stuff will probably greatly(?) 
> delay getting the support for DVB-C/T Mantis cards into v4l-dvb.

Why will it delay it?

> For my personal use I have created a patch against the latest v4l-dvb 
> based on Manu's Mantis tree including the remote control support for 
> VP-2033 and VP-2040. 

Great! Please post your remote control patch to the mailing list. It would be
best to patch s2-liplianin if possible but Manu's tree is probably no different for
this.

> But what I would really like to see is Mantis 
> driver merged into v4l-dvb and later into mainstream.

Me too, I would like to see s2-liplianin merged into v4l-dvb as soon as possible.

> Igor, what are your thoughts about the Mantis driver? How about the 
> other Mantis users, like Marko Ristola, Roland Scheidegger, and Kristian 
> Slavov?
> 
> Regards,
> Pauli Borodulin

Regards,
Hans

-- 
Release early, release often.

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