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Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

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Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby BlueSky » Mon Oct 26, 2015 1:59 am

We have three TBS cards in use now and there is one thing about them that I find extremely annoying. It is that whenever the operating system pushes out a kernel update and you install it, you have to go through the entire process for rebuilding the TBS drivers, because for some odd reason it seems that TBS has never bothered to get their drivers included in the Linux kernel (and by the way, that is very likely costing them sales, see the discussion at http://rickcaylor.websitetoolbox.com/po ... te-7765399 - if TBS were smart they'd try to address this issue).

Anyway after reading that thread I decided to try and see if there was any kind of easy install/upgrade script for TBS drivers, but the only thing I found that came close was this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/518360/ ... of-drivers

Aside from the fact that the script doesn't work as shown, it appears to me that the biggest flaw is it has no way to detect and install the latest version of the TBS drivers. Which brings up a second point: As far as I can tell, there is no fixed link to the current version of the TBS drivers. Even if that script worked, it would always try to install the drivers from
Code: Select All Code
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_v140707.zip
but those are an older version of the drivers. With many other types of software, there would be a permanent link such as
Code: Select All Code
http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_current.zip
which would then be symlinked to the most recent version of the drivers, so you always get the most current revision. But as far as I can determine, TBS doesn't seem to have a fixed link to the most current driver package. If they did, it would make it much easier to create a proper install script.

I imagine that a very rudimentary script to apply all system updates and rebuild the kernel drivers might then look something like this (note this is untested and in any case would not work without a fixed link to the current driver version, so right now it's mostly hypothetical, also it assumes you are running in a 64-bit OS):

Code: Select All Code
#!/bin/sh
rm -rf tbsdrivers
mkdir tbsdrivers
cd tbsdrivers
wget http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_current.zip && unzip tbs-linux-drivers_current.zip && tar xf linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2 && cd linux-tbs-drivers && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo ./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh && sudo make && sudo make install && sudo reboot

(My understanding is that the && connector executes the next command in the sequence only if the previous one has executed without errors. So for example, if the driver download fails, or fails to unzip correctly, it won't proceed with applying the system updates, and so on).

But without a fixed link to the current driver package I have no idea how you could do this, sort of manually editing the script to change the two instances of "current" to the actual current version number before running it. And did I mention it's totally untested?

Anyway, If TBS isn't going to get their drivers into the Linux kernel anytime soon, I truly wish that they (or anyone with a bit more scripting experience than I) would come up with a working script to make updating the system and reinstalling the drivers not quite such a pain. Or at least please give us a permanent link to the current driver version.

EDIT: Possible alternative version of the above script that requires the bash shell, still untested, and still requires a link to the current driver version that doesn't yet exist. Difference is you run the script as the root user (use sudo) rather than having a bunch of sudo statements in the script itself.

Code: Select All Code
#!/bin/bash
if [[ $EUID -ne 0 ]]; then
   echo "This script must be run as root" 1>&2
   exit 1
fi
cd root
rm -rf tbsdrivers
mkdir tbsdrivers
cd tbsdrivers
wget http://www.tbsdtv.com/download/document/common/tbs-linux-drivers_current.zip && unzip tbs-linux-drivers_current.zip && tar xf linux-tbs-drivers.tar.bz2 && cd linux-tbs-drivers && apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && ./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh && make && make install && reboot


It occurs to me that it might be possible to write the script in such a way that it would start out by trying to download a file with the name tbs-linux-drivers_v[today's date].zip and if that was unsuccessful decrement back one day in time and try again until it was successful, but that would cause a lot of unnecessary network traffic and possibly put a strain on the TBS servers. It would be far easier if they would provide a permanent link to the latest version of the drivers.
BlueSky
 
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby Maxpower » Tue Nov 03, 2015 3:00 am

This post has accurately described the constant frustration I experience with TBS products.

This post is also worthy of at least a response from the TBS team . . . common on guys!
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby BlueSky » Sun Dec 20, 2015 1:02 pm

I just wanted to bump this thread because there have been TWO Ubuntu kernel updates just this week and it is EXTREMELY frustrating to have to go through this process every single time. I am beginning to think TBS doesn't give a shit, in fact I wonder if they even read this forum. How hard would it really be to always offer the latest version of the firmware under a name that never changes, such as tbs-linux-drivers-latest? It would probably take them a few seconds each time there is a new release to create that symlink on their server, and then at least someone could take a crack at writing a script, since they have no interest in doing it.

In the meantime I have seen several discussions that categorize TBS's Linux drivers as not very good (example here). I'm not personally having any real issues with them that I'm aware of, but at the same time I wonder why if they do not want to put any effort into making their drivers as easy to use as any other manufacturer's, why don't they at least support the guys writing open source drivers by maybe loaning them their newest tuners when they come out? I'd be willing to use an open source driver but none support my TBS6905 card and apparently that's because there's something different about the hardware from earlier models like the TBS6985 that it replaces. Anyway this business with having to recompile the drivers EVERY SINGLE TIME there is a kernel update is becoming annoying enough that I would not recommend a TBS card to anyone that runs Linux, and if I ever need to replace a card I am going to look long and hard to see if there are any decent alternatives. C'mon, TBS, maybe all your developers are expert coders who can do this stuff in their sleep but for the rest of us it's a genuine annoyance!
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby vpeter » Sun Dec 20, 2015 4:27 pm

Unpack tbs driver in one folder. After you installed the driver leave this folder on a disk. When kernel update is made just (re)install the driver from the same folder. Annoying but should be easy to do.
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby BlueSky » Mon Dec 21, 2015 12:47 am

vpeter Wrote:Unpack tbs driver in one folder. After you installed the driver leave this folder on a disk. When kernel update is made just (re)install the driver from the same folder.


Actually, doing that does NOT work for me for some reason - if I don't delete that folder and start over then it fails during the "make" step.

vpeter Wrote:Annoying but should be easy to do.


Don't you think that in one sense those are mutually exclusive? It would not be annoying if it were dead easy. Easy would be running a script using a single command. I understand what you are saying, the process doesn't require a lot of output of physical or mental energy, but it's starting to get to the point that I get a little angry at the TBS developers (and the Ubuntu developers, too - nobody NEEDS two kernel updates in the same week) every time I have to do this. It's a little bit emotionally draining, if nothing else.
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby vpeter » Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:11 am

BlueSky Wrote:Actually, doing that does NOT work for me for some reason - if I don't delete that folder and start over then it fails during the "make" step.
You should clean everything with make clean or maybe make distclean. This will move folder to clean state.
With putting all commands in one bash script you get one script which needs to be run after kernel update. This should be dead easy.
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby BlueSky » Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:15 am

vpeter Wrote:You should clean everything with make clean or maybe make distclean. This will move folder to clean state.
With putting all commands in one bash script you get one script which needs to be run after kernel update. This should be dead easy.


I'm not sure what advantage there would be to doing that over just unpacking the archive file again (especially since you don't even seem to be certain of which command should be used) but what I think that you may not be understanding here is that there are Linux gurus who understand this stuff - for them it would be dead easy. Then there are people like me who live in constant fear that one wrong misstep in Linux and I will destroy what was a perfectly working system, and indeed I have done that in the past.

If it's really dead easy, why don't the TBS programmers take ten minutes and create a script for us to use, one that would be officially blessed by them so that we can run it with some confidence we're not doing the wrong thing. My particular fear with scripts is that sure, you can stick a bunch of commands in order in a script but what happens if one of them fails? For example if it can't find the archive file or can't extract it properly, what happens then? Or if make fails for some reason, will it still attempt to do the make install? Putting commands in a specific order in a script is easy, making sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing before proceeding to the next step is another matter altogether. I've been told that the && connector does this (as in my earlier hypothetical example) but I don't actually know that, it was just something I read somewhere. And anyway I don't know if there's a limit as to how many commands you can chain together with &&.

Above all, though, my big problem is I see no good way to make sure you are always using the current drivers because TBS refuses to provide a download with a name like tbs-linux-drivers-latest or tbs-linux-drivers-current or something like that, so the script could easily download the latest version each time. It just seems to me like the TBS guys assume that all people running Linux are Linux gurus that cut their teeth on Linux at age 8, and while a few of their users may indeed fall into that category, I suspect there are a lot more of us that need all the help we can get.
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby cband » Thu Dec 31, 2015 3:34 pm

If anyone is still looking for such a script I found one here the other day:

https://freetoairamerica.wordpress.com/ ... l-updates/

Do take note of the caveats in the article.
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby Connum » Fri Jan 08, 2016 5:46 pm

Hi cband,

I just registered here to say thank you. This script is awesome, it works like a charm and makes it so much easier! I recommend this to anyone running a TBS card/box under Linux.

Cheers
Connum
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Re: Is there any kind of (re)install script available?

Postby torbengb » Sat Feb 06, 2016 4:53 pm

Thank you cband for that very useful link!
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