Install on Debian Buster

LIRC on Buster have to be patched in order to work, so the installation is more complex.

If you already tried to install lirc, remove it first

sudo apt remove lirc liblirc0 liblirc-client0

Install patched LIRC

sudo su -c "grep '^deb ' /etc/apt/sources.list | sed 's/^deb/deb-src/g' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb-src.list"
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y devscripts dh-exec doxygen expect libasound2-dev libftdi1-dev libsystemd-dev libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libusb-dev man2html-base portaudio19-dev socat xsltproc python3-yaml dh-python libx11-dev python3-dev python3-setuptools
mkdir build
cd build
apt source lirc
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/neuralassembly/raspi/master/lirc-gpio-ir-0.10.patch
patch -p0 -i lirc-gpio-ir-0.10.patch
cd lirc-0.10.1
debuild -uc -us -b
cd ..
sudo apt install -y --allow-downgrades ./liblirc0_0.10.1-5.2_armhf.deb ./liblircclient0_0.10.1-5.2_armhf.deb ./lirc_0.10.1-5.2_armhf.deb

The last command will fail, but it will create important files

sudo cp /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf.dist /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf
sudo cp /etc/lirc/lircd.conf.dist /etc/lirc/lircd.conf

Alter following file

sudo nano /etc/lirc/lirc_options.conf

driver = default
device = /dev/lirc0

Specify pin you have a IR receiver connected to

sudo echo dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=17 >> /boot/config.txt

Reboot to apply changes

sudo reboot

Enable LIRC service

sudo systemctl enable lircd.service && sudo systemctl start lircd.service
sudo systemctl status lircd.service