default_init: () No such device

[New u. <hot...@ho...>]

Hi all,

I've been trying to get lirc going for the past few day but still cant get 
it to respond to irw tests.  Each time I start irw, lircd stops and reports 
that it can not access /dev/lirc which is there and available to all for 
read write access.  I've seen a number of people with this issue but none of 
the fixes seem to work in this scenario.  If you guys have any trouble 
shootings step for me i would be more than happy to try them out.

Please let me know what you think.

BTW I used module-assistant to install lirc which i was possitive would 
handle all dependency issue but i'm not so sure now.

######### lsmod |grep lirc
lirc_i2c                9092  0
lirc_dev               13956  1 lirc_i2c
i2c_core               19680  10 
lirc_i2c,cx88xx,bttv,wm8775,cx25840,tuner,ivtv,i2c_algo_bit,i2c_sis96x,tveeprom

########## which lircd
/usr/local/sbin/lircd

root@myth:~# cat /etc/modules.conf |grep lirc
alias char-major-61 lirc_i2

########## dpkg --get-selections "*lirc*"
liblircclient-dev                               purge
liblircclient0                                  purge
lirc                                            purge
lirc-modules-2.6.17-2-686                       purge
lirc-modules-2.6.18-3-686                       install
lirc-modules-source                             install
lirc-x                                          purge

####### /usr/local/sbin/lircd /etc/lircd.conf;ps -ef |grep lirc
root     10063     1  0 19:11 ?        00:00:00 /usr/local/sbin/lircd 
/etc/lircd.conf
root     10065  8728  0 19:11 pts/2    00:00:00 grep lirc

####### cat /var/log/lircd

Dec 30 19:11:06 myth lircd: lircd(hauppauge) ready
Dec 30 19:11:44 myth lircd: lircd(hauppauge) ready

####### dmesg |grep lirc
lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61
lirc_i2c: no version for "lirc_unregister_plugin" found: kernel tainted.
lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61
lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61
lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61
lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61
lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, at major 61

######### irw; cat /var/log/lircd
Dec 30 19:11:06 myth lircd: lircd(hauppauge) ready
Dec 30 19:11:44 myth lircd: lircd(hauppauge) ready
Dec 30 19:14:47 myth lircd: accepted new client on /dev/lircd
Dec 30 19:14:47 myth lircd: could not open /dev/lirc
Dec 30 19:14:47 myth lircd: default_init(): No such device
Dec 30 19:14:47 myth lircd: caught signal

root@myth:~# ls -l /dev/lirc*
crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 61, 0 2006-12-30 11:54 /dev/lirc
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root     0 2006-12-30 19:11 /dev/lircd
prw-rw-rw- 1 root root     0 2006-12-30 11:26 /dev/lircm