Realtek RTL2832U DVB-T on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise) and Linux Mint 13 (Maya)

Ubuntu (Desktop) 12.04 (codenamed Precise Pangolin) was released earlier this May, which has 5-years Long Term Support (LTS) from Canonical.  Let's check it out how my DVB-T USB stick works on Linux kernel 3.2.  Unfortunately, Realtek RTL2832U driver did not make it in the kernel main stream, and the instructions mentioned in the post "HD DVB on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)" posted a year ago did not work for me either.  Luckily, I followed the instructions at https://github.com/ambrosa/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0 ,and everything goes well.  Here's the recap:

Install required packages:

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential git

Check out a copy of the driver source code patched by ambrosa:

$ git clone https://github.com/ambrosa/DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0

Makefile configuration and driver compilation/installation:

$ cd DVB-Realtek-RTL2832U-2.2.2-10tuner-mod_kernel-3.0.0/RTL2832-2.2.2_kernel-3.0.0/

$ vi Makefile (to make sure variable INCLUDE_EXTRA_DVB matches your kernel version)

$ make clean

$ make

$ sudo make install

$ sudo modprobe dvb_usb_rtl2832u

dmesg shown after module insertion:

[  927.960738] IR NEC protocol handler initialized

[  927.963676] dvb-usb: found a 'DK DONGLE' in warm state.

[  927.963680] dvb-usb: will pass the complete MPEG2 transport stream to the software demuxer.

[  927.965156] IR RC5(x) protocol handler initialized

[  927.965302] DVB: registering new adapter (DK DONGLE)

[  927.966515] IR RC6 protocol handler initialized

[  927.968948] IR JVC protocol handler initialized

[  927.971631] IR Sony protocol handler initialized

[  927.972945] IR MCE Keyboard/mouse protocol handler initialized

[  927.974271] lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 250

[  927.974493] IR LIRC bridge handler initialized

[  927.980540] RTL2832U usb_init_bulk_setting : USB2.0 HIGH SPEED (480Mb/s)

[  928.116808] RTL2832U check_tuner_type : FC2580 tuner on board...

[  928.709405] DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (Realtek DVB-T RTL2832)...

[  928.709781] input: IR-receiver inside an USB DVB receiver as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.1/input/input12

[  928.709916] dvb-usb: schedule remote query interval to 287 msecs.

[  928.709924] dvb-usb: DK DONGLE successfully initialized and connected.

[  928.709997] usbcore: registered new interface driver dvb_usb_rtl2832u

Double confirm with lsmod listing:

$ lsmod | grep rtl28

dvb_usb_rtl2832u      345365  0

dvb_usb                23826  1 dvb_usb_rtl2832u

The VLC player and the ALSA sound driver were in good shape, thus no extra update was required.

HDTV playback

Additional information:

$ lsusb | grep DVB

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 1d19:1102 Dexatek Technology Ltd. DK mini DVB-T Dongle

$ uname -a

Linux cheetah 3.2.0-24-generic-pae #37-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 25 10:47:59 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

$ vlc --version
VLC media player 2.0.1 Twoflower (revision 2.0.1-0-gf432547)
VLC version 2.0.1 Twoflower (2.0.1-0-gf432547)

$ more /proc/asound/version
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.24.

[Updated May 26, 2012]

Linux Mint 13 (Maya), which was based on Ubuntu 12.04, was released few days ago.  The steps mentioned above work as well on Mint.  Have fun!

HDTV playback on Linux Mint 13