[DESKTOP] IR control of Kubuntu from the desktop

[barfly]

KDE seems to have abandoned its infra-red control system using the kdenotifieritem widget in the system tray.

Quote from the developers "KRemoteControl is umaintained and no longer released by the KDE community."

It is still available for install but doesn't work properly in 18.04, just crashes every time a change is made to the configuration interface.

I abandoned lirc which was an absolute nightmare to configure (but did work for the desktop) for the in-kernel EVDEV support for my mythtv installation and it works really well with mythtv.

My issue is that in order to improve the WAF (wife approval factor) it would be ideal if I could somehow initiate the start of mythtv from the desktop with an infra-red command.

The wife will not touch a keyboard so I have to manually start mythtv every time she wants to use the tv. An infra-red button solution as I had with previous iterations of KDE/plasma is what I am after.

Oh why is it that we go two steps forwards and two steps back with every new release? New stuff gets added and things that worked so well for years are suddenly broken with no way to fix it.

[Snowhog]

Oh why is it that we go two steps forwards and two steps back with every new release? New stuff gets added and things that worked so well for years are suddenly broken with no way to fix it.

Because packages rely on developers/maintainers, and developers/maintainers (nearly all of them) are volunteers who most likely have real lives that must be attend to. Then there is the situation were a given package was written with 'older, at the time supported,' development tools/libraries, that, with major changes to the OS (think KDE3 to KDE4; KDE4 to Plasma et al), are no longer compatible with the OS and must either be ported or completely rewritten (if even possible) to work within the new OS environment. Change happens. OS's evolve, and not every program/package survives the transition.

[barfly]

Because packages rely on developers/maintainers, and developers/maintainers (nearly all of them) are volunteers who most likely have real lives that must be attend to. Then there is the situation were a given package was written with 'older, at the time supported,' development tools/libraries, that, with major changes to the OS (think KDE3 to KDE4; KDE4 to Plasma et al), are no longer compatible with the OS and must either be ported or completely rewritten (if even possible) to work within the new OS environment. Change happens. OS's evolve, and not every program/package survives the transition.

Snowhog-I fully understand the points you make, and I am extremely grateful to all the developers who freely give of their time to improve all open-source software. There are probably thousands of users who have linux as their HTPC solutions, and reverting back to older kernels etc. for just one issue is not good for all these thousands of home theatre users.
It just gets so frustrating when you spend days setting up your HTPC and then are frustrated by the final link in the chain and no way to fix it.

I wonder if the devs could work out a simple solution to allow the newer EVDEV system to be actuated from the desktop, instead of only from within an application. That would solve the problem.
Thanks for your response, Tony.

[shag00]

It's not at all clear to me what you actually want to do with MythTV. If what you want to do is control it have you looked at KDE connect which is a Wi-Fi connection that gives you cursor control and allows you to do anything. Do you only watch locally recorded material or streaming or just something simple like turning the TV set on? I also have a HTPC and the only human interface device I have in my home is my phone.