Getting the Maplin MCE remote working in Ubuntu

Today I finally decided to get this remote working in Ubuntu. The remote has the model number of RC118 and works exactly like the standard MCE remote. The difficulty is with the receiver which is a Formosa device which emulates the MCE Home receiver. Lirc now has support for this receiver so I just had to make a small change:

install lirc and replace /etc/lirc/hardware.conf with the following:

# /etc/lirc/hardware.conf
#
#Chosen Remote Control
REMOTE="Windows Media Center Remotes (new version Philips et al.)"
REMOTE_MODULES="lirc_dev lirc_mceusb"
REMOTE_DRIVER=""
REMOTE_DEVICE="/dev/lirc0"
REMOTE_LIRCD_CONF="mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb"
REMOTE_LIRCD_ARGS=""

#Chosen IR Transmitter
TRANSMITTER="None"
TRANSMITTER_MODULES=""
TRANSMITTER_DRIVER=""
TRANSMITTER_DEVICE=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_CONF=""
TRANSMITTER_LIRCD_ARGS=""

#Enable lircd
START_LIRCD="true"

#Don't start lircmd even if there seems to be a good config file
#START_LIRCMD="false"

#Try to load appropriate kernel modules
LOAD_MODULES="true"

# Default configuration files for your hardware if any
LIRCMD_CONF=""

#Forcing noninteractive reconfiguration
#If lirc is to be reconfigured by an external application
#that doesn't have a debconf frontend available, the noninteractive
#frontend can be invoked and set to parse REMOTE and TRANSMITTER
#It will then populate all other variables without any user input
#If you would like to configure lirc via standard methods, be sure
#to leave this set to "false"
FORCE_NONINTERACTIVE_RECONFIGURATION="false"
START_LIRCMD=""

then remove the current loaded module for lirc_mceusb and load the new one:

$ sudo rmmod lirc_mceusb
$ sudo modprobe lirc_mceusb

and running irw should show the module working and recognising keypresses. Boxee is great when using a remote!

Update:

The remote works in Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) without needing to edit any configuration files. Just install lirc and when you are asked to configure, select “Windows Media Centre Remote”