I have a "generic" USB IR receiver I purchased off of Ebay to make my life a little easier with XBMC on my Ubuntu box. I am currently running 13.10 and have never tried nor have any knowledge of IR in Ubuntu. I know of lirc, and I know a lot of it is now included in the kernel. My understanding is that lirc in basic terms maps pulses from an remote control to functions - like keyboard or mouse clicks. It is also my understanding that I might still need a driver or something for my device.

lsusb shows the device as:

Bus 006 Device 003: ID 147a:e016 Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc. eHome Infrared Receiver

dmesg shows the following pertaining to the device:

[43635.311985] usb 6-2: USB disconnect, device number 2

[43641.344387] usb 6-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci-pci

[43641.543454] usb 6-2: New USB device found, idVendor=147a, idProduct=e016

[43641.543467] usb 6-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

[43641.543473] usb 6-2: Product: eHome Infrared Transceiver

[43641.543478] usb 6-2: Manufacturer: Formosa21

[43641.543483] usb 6-2: SerialNumber: FM000623

[43641.555736] Registered IR keymap rc-rc6-mce

[43641.555968] input: Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Remote Transceiver (147a:e016) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb6/6-2/6-2:1.0/rc/rc2/input15

[43641.556221] rc2: Media Center Ed. eHome Infrared Remote Transceiver (147a:e016) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb6/6-2/6-2:1.0/rc/rc2

[43641.556584] input: MCE IR Keyboard/Mouse (mceusb) as /devices/virtual/input/input16

[43641.557186] rc rc2: lirc_dev: driver ir-lirc-codec (mceusb) registered at minor = 0

[43641.731965] mceusb 6-2:1.0: Registered Formosa21 eHome Infrared Transceiver with mce emulator interface version 1

[43641.731978] mceusb 6-2:1.0: 2 tx ports (0x0 cabled) and 2 rx sensors (0x0 active)

(excuse the double spacing, but I had to put in extra cr/lf using "enter" or the entire thing was just one long unreadable string).

When I connect the same IR receiver to a Raspberry Pi running OpenELEC/XBMC there is no flashing led unless I press a remote button, and the device works. In Ubuntu, the led is constantly blinking, and nothing happens when I press a remote key. I tried the command line program to test but it never echoes anything back to the terminal window.

I believe it must need some sort of driver or something else, but I am completely in the dark on this.

If it matters I also have: - Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse USB receiver - Tenda USB wireless adapter

And.....I've also noticed some errors now that show in dmesg that seem to somehow related to HDMI if that makes any sense:

46721.144731] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46721.144749] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46721.444025] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46721.444061] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46721.743375] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46721.743411] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46722.043092] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46722.043118] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46722.343086] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46722.343122] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46722.642517] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46722.642574] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46722.942459] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46722.942485] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46723.242103] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46723.242129] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[46723.541877] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[46723.541923] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58366.651954] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58366.651980] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58366.951523] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58366.951549] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58367.251075] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58367.251121] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58367.550517] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58367.550563] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58367.850219] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58367.850256] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58368.150160] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58368.150185] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58368.449544] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58368.449570] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58368.749583] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58368.749629] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58369.049280] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58369.049326] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58394.706273] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58394.706300] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58394.706350] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58394.706367] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58395.003032] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58395.003058] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58395.302680] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58395.302705] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58395.602442] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58395.602477] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58395.902143] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58395.902179] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58396.201839] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58396.201875] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58396.501538] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58396.501574] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58396.801232] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58396.801268] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[58397.100583] HDMI: ELD buf size is 0, force 128
[58397.100627] HDMI: invalid ELD data byte 0
[63095.766042] systemd-hostnamed[8875]: Warning: nss-myhostname is not installed. Changing the local hostname might make it unresolveable. Please install nss-myhostname!
dave@davepc:~$ 

EDIT: Maybe another way to look at this would be what does Ubuntu do or not do that OpenELEC does or doesn't do (on Raspberry Pi) such that it works in OpenELEC but not in Ubuntu?