I wanted to enhance my remote control environment at home within my raspberry pi4 running current osmc. That worked, but I did not understand the details. Thus I did a deeper analysis of all IR related configuration files (as far as I can tell). And I discovered some inconsistencies which I propose to be resolved:
Handling of ir-keytable
There are two folders containing toml configuration files /etc/rc_keymaps and /usr/lib/udev/rc_keymaps. The first one is empty, the second one contains files. The configuration file /etc/rc_maps.cfg point into the empty folder, but naming all those files as available within the udev subfolder. As far as I can tell only the udev 70-infrared.rules loads keytables, exactly those from /etc/rc_maps.cfg - in short, nothing. Thus I propose to move the rc_keymaps from udev folder into /etc to make it work. I could not test my proposal since I don’t own a related IR device. But maybe the files within udev folder are intended as samples to be used after changing them - then everything is fine as is.
Path mismatch /var/run/lirc with /usr/var/run/lirc
irexec & irw are suffering. My proposed solution - replace /usr/var/run/lirc by a symbolic link onto /var/run/lirc. Afterwards one can run irw without options, despite eventlircd is running. I myself did create a custom /etc/systemd/system/irexec.service - but there exist already a working /lib/systemd/system/irexex.service - only with the wrong path /usr/sbin/irexec (and a better configuration filename irexec.lircrc).
I also tried to get rid of the lircd option –uinput and use the recommended service lircd-uinput. That failed. lircd-uinput writes onto /dev/uinput - nobody is reading from (e.g. irw fails).
Hope my suggestions are welcome, Michael