Asus My Cinema U3100 Mini Linux Compatible USB DVB-T Tuner Vs. AverTV Volar HD Nano

My experience with Avermedia devices has mostly been a pleasant one. Well, on windows platforms at least. My last employer purchased a fleet of Avermedia PCMCIA DVB-T/Analogue/FM cards for the work laptops, for network monitoring purposes, and they were fantastic.

When I was looking for a DVB-T USB tuner for my private laptop, I recalled the tough time we gave the Avermedia devices and how well they worked. Seemed to me, getting another Avermedia device was a great idea so long as there was Linux support. Avermedia claims Linux support for their AVerTV Volar HD Nano, but in truth I have wasted many hours configuring computers, installing kernel modules, and make installs. Admittedly, if I had've compiled the first driver and left the computer alone, it would still be working. Unfortunately, I made the decision to upgrade the Dell E6500 from 10.04LTS to 11.04, tried to get the HD Nano working. Then bought a new Dell E6320 and tried to get the thing to work on 11.04 on it. I am partly to blame for the hours I have spent, however, if Avermedia manufactured a device that was compliant with linux out of the box, I would still be a happy customer.

Ubuntu 11.04 - not starting out well...

I just had a notification to upgrade Ubuntu on my good laptop to 11.04.  I figured, 'why not?'.  Why not indeed... before I managed to even re-start the machine I ran into dramas.

Avermedia AVerTV Volar HD Nano A867R install

I installed this on an earlier Ubuntu based linux version, and now with a fresh build of Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, I'm gonna have to do it again.  I seem to recall it being a complete bitch with a poorly written readme, they are Taiwanese, after all. I can't remember how I finally got the thing to work, and I wish I'd made notes...

That's ok, I'll make some now!