Pcmcia module viaccess - three words that are used very often in the Internet. Certainly we are talking about digital television, and in this article we will give you directions about how to install a DVB pcmcia device on Linux.

We assume that you already have pcmcia module viaccess plugged in your laptop. By default pcmsi is running on Linux, also the distribution of your OS should be > 2.6 kernel.
If this is so, there is an option to have the needed modules already compiled.

You need to check the specification of your card and to have the drivers coming from the manufacturer. If there are not any provided you will have to use the common ones developed by the Linux geeks over the word.

Lets start because our “pcmcia module viaccess” is waiting.

First check whether you have the modules installed with:

#lsmod

Also you can check for the dvb in your device folder

#ls �"lsa /dev/dvd

If you have error after this command maybe there is something wrong.
The good old command ‘dmesg’ will help:

# dmesg | grep dvd

If you see errors about firmware file not been found, check:

‘/lib/firmware’
and
‘/usr/lib/hotplug/firmware’

If you do not have such one check at www.linuxtv.org/download/dvb/firmware about it.

By resolving the firmware problem, that should help for proper detection of pcmcia module viaccess device.

Other case would be when you have to install the TV drivers.

To compile the the driver you will need: ‘kernel-headers’, ‘make’, ‘gcc’ ‘mercurial’ .

Get ‘mercurial’ with:

# yum install mercurial

Of’ course you will change ‘yum’ as per your distribution with: apt-get, emerge, urpmi, or any other package installed that your OS supports.

# hg clone www.linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb

The above command will download the last source from the site.

Once you have it, enter to the folder and execute:

#make

wait until the compilation ends and if there are no any issues continue with :

#make install

Again if there are no issues, you will have the driver installed.

Hope the this article provides you useful information about as we called it: pcmcia module viaccess installation.

Note: Once again you will need kernels > 2.6.The LinuxTV drivers work in with reasonably new kernels.