I have a ATI Remote Wonder 2 ... and upgrading to Natty is literally a two nights spent getting and tryin all kinds of configuration options with no success whatsoever.  

If I use ati_remote2 it is OK, Lirc and irw work fine, except that the remote is seen as a input device. All great, until you want to use that with XBMC and/or disable the remote in X11 so the remote does not mess with the actual mouse+keyboard. With ati_remote2 driver if you want to filter the remote event irw also stops receiving signals - so no choice than to have the remote active in x11 as a input device.  This for a triple display setup as I have (2 monitors + 1 tv running on 2 x Nvidia cards) is unacceptable - you don't want someone putting the PC to sleep because they pushed the sleep button on the remote while watching XBM/TV. Now If someone actually has an idea how to get ati_remote2 driver to not be treated as an input device in X11 and to generate standard scan codes  in lirc/irw I have no issue. But so far this is a no no .. I could not figure how to get this working properly at all, nothing that was working before is applicable.

So.. I decided to go to lirc_atiusb + lirc_dev , use the linux devinput as I am doing on Ubuntu 9 LTS. Got the lirc-modules-source , built the modules, removed the blacklisted lirc_atiusb etc. But for no avail, lirc_atiusb does not send any events to lirc ?!!! 

So here is the driver log when run in debug mode - aka modprobe lirc_atiusb debug
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052474] lirc_atiusb: USB remote driver for LIRC $Revision: 1.88 $
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052476] lirc_atiusb: Paul Miller <email address hidden>
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052478] lirc_atiusb: debug mode enabled: $Id: lirc_atiusb.c,v 1.88 2010/07/25 16:43:33 jarodwilson Exp $
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052504] lirc_atiusb[2]: usb_remote_probe: dev:ffff880323bbe000, intf:ffff880323759000, id:ffffffffa00b9270)
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052507] lirc_atiusb[2]: scanning remote_list...
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052509] lirc_atiusb[2]: remote type = 1
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052511] lirc_atiusb[2]: adding remote to list
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052514] lirc_atiusb[2]: processing endpoint 0
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052516] lirc_atiusb[2]: acceptable inbound endpoint (0x81) found (maxp=8 len=3)
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052520] lirc_atiusb[2]: adding ep=0x81 to list
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052522] lirc_dev: lirc_register_driver: sample_rate: 0
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052589] lirc_atiusb[2]:  on usb8:2
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052597] lirc_atiusb[2]: usb_remote_probe: dev:ffff880323bbe000, intf:ffff880323758c00, id:ffffffffa00b9270)
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052600] lirc_atiusb[2]: scanning remote_list...
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052601] lirc_atiusb[2]: prior instance found.
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052603] lirc_atiusb[2]: processing endpoint 0
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052606] lirc_atiusb[2]: acceptable inbound endpoint (0x82) found (maxp=8 len=3)
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052609] lirc_atiusb[2]: adding ep=0x82 to list
Jun 27 22:39:00 obelix kernel: [ 3866.052634] usbcore: registered new interface driver lirc_atiusb

As you can see the driver properly loads and identifies the remote on the correct USB bus

Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0471:0602 Philips (or NXP) ATI Remote Wonder II Input Device

But any button press is not doing anything, not even a line written in the kernel log. So no surprise we do not get anything on IRW.

So,. there is a bug - filtering/ignoring the event in X11 and getting the remote to generate plain scan codes in lirc/irw does not work and lirc_atiusb is literally broken. 

Of course... unless someone has a brilliant solution to get this actually working - with ati_remote2 or lirc_atiusb.