HOWTO Get the Plextor ConvertX to work with Slackware 11.0

Intro

1. Install Slackware 11.0 (full install). That's the easy bit :-)

2. Install the following packages (from linuxpackages.net). All but MPlayer and fxload are optional, but you will need all of them to later do anything useful with your ConvertX, so you may as well install them now.

      MPlayer-1.0pre8-i486-1asz.tgz
      lame-3.97b3-i486-1kjz.tgz
      lm_sensors-2.10.1-i486-1kjz.tgz
      jack-0.101.1-i486-1kjz.tgz      
      mythplugins-0.20a-i486-1kjz.tgz
      mythtv-0.20-i486-1kjz.tgz
      sysfsutils-2.1.0-i486-1kjz.tgz
      fxload-1.7-i386-1bif.tgz
   

3. Install the following packages off the Slackware CD/DVD:

      kernel-generic-2.6.17.13-i486-1.tgz
      kernel-headers-2.6.17.13-i386-1.tgz  
      kernel-modules-2.6.17.13-i486-1.tgz 
      kernel-source-2.6.17.13-noarch-1.tgz
   

   (Or whatever is there)

   Don't forget your initrd - Check the instructions supplied in /boot/README.initrd for details. It's pretty straightforward, as are most things under Slackware.

4. Boot the system using the new kernel, to make sure it works.

   Now: the stock Slackware 'testing' kernel seems to have all the options configured as laid down in the go7007 driver README. The README states that you must have a compiled kernel source tree in order for the make process to work correctly. This isn't strictly true, but due to the way the 2.6 kernel build system works, sound advice, since the kernel headers should be correctly configured (not just extracted from the tarball from www.kernel.org). Fortunately Mr Volkerding seems to have sorted this all out, and the go7007 make system was happy without the kernel rebuild for me. Caveat: Not sure if this will always be the case for all future kernels.

   Now it's time to compile the go7007 driver. Unplug the ConvertX first, so you can see what happens when you bring it online.

5. Unpack the go7007 source (wis-go7007-linux-0.9.8.tar.bz2), copy of which is here. I found the wischip site often slow, so you can also find it here.
6. After unpacking the go7007 stuff, patch it with the 2.6.17 kernel patch from here. This is needed because some defines used by go7007 were deprecated in later kernels and the stock go7007 driver will only work with 2.6.15 or earlier kernels. I also have a copy of the patch here.

7. Build and Install the plextor drivers (make, make install)

8. Plug in the plextor - dmesg should give something like this:

      usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 8
      usb 1-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
      go7007-usb: probing new GO7007 USB board
      go7007: registering new Plextor PX-TV402U-EU
      wis-saa7115: initializing SAA7115 at address 32 on WIS GO7007SB EZ-USB
      wis-uda1342: initializing UDA1342 at address 26 on WIS GO7007SB EZ-USB
      wis-sony-tuner: initializing tuner at address 96 on WIS GO7007SB EZ-USB
      wis-sony-tuner: setting MPX to mode 1
      wis-sony-tuner: type set to 200 (Sony PAL+SECAM (BTF-PG472Z))
      usbcore: registered new driver go7007
   

9. Run the gorecord program without arguments to ensure you're talking to the device:

   ./apps/gorecord

   This should give a printout of the driver info, input ports and so on. If something goes wrong here there are a number of possibilities. Most likely is the kernel is not compatible with the driver. Try a different kernel version, maybe 2.6.15.7 (doesn't require the driver patch), and in this case I'm afraid you need to compile the kernel.

10. Record a sample with gorecord. In this case I plugged a camcorder into the S-Video input on the device and ran:

    ./apps/gorecord -duration 10 -mode pal -input 1 file.avi

    Change the parameters for other inputs.

11. Play the sample in mplayer to verify you've recorded something.

    mplayer file.avi

bifferos 5/10/06.