Kitz Forum
Computer Software => Linux => Topic started by: Blackeagle on March 20, 2014, 08:16:47 PM
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Having done much testing over the last few days, I have now decided the driver is suitable for release as a beta.
As I have not yet submitted the driver to the guys at LCDproc for inclusion, (it is after all an old case and display), I have repackaged the LCDproc tarball to include my driver which will build with the usual './configure && make && make install'.
Documentation is provided in the tarball as to how to build and install LCDproc and also how to make the necessary modifications to the kernel to enable the display to be used. Also included with the documentation is an example 'LCD.xml' file for use with XBMC (http://www.xbmc.org).
What the driver can do so far
Assuming you use the included LCD.xml file, the display will show which menu item is highlighted. If the text doesn't fit into the display it will scroll right to left. When watching live TV the channel name will be displayed, etc etc.
The modfied LCDproc tarball can be downloaded from here (http://blackeagle1.no-ip.biz/futaba.html).
As the driver is fully LCDproc compatible, it should work with any compatible client, assuming the client can be configured to use just one line, but I have not tested this.
To Do
Implement the custom icons on the display and the volume bars on the left. If anybody feels they can help then please do so !!
Assuming that somebody else does actually use the driver, please feedback into this thread or the Elonex Artisan thread here (https://forums.ebuyer.com/showthread.php/665-Elonex-Artisan).
BE
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. . . or the Elonex Artisan thread here (https://forums.ebuyer.com/showthread.php/665-Elonex-Artisan).
Only 175 pages long and still growing! :swoon:
Makes Baldy Bird's thread, regarding the VDSL2 segment of his FTTC service, look decidedly wimpy. :-X
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Indeed!! But the Baldy birds thread has not yet been in existence for as long! Not yet, anyway!!
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UPDATE
I have decided after much testing, that my driver can move from a beta version to a full 1.0 release version. To better support the display, I have written an extension to the XBMC LCDproc addon, which supports virtually all of the useful icons on the display as well as the vertical volume bar.
Further details can be found in the Artisan thread previously linked to.
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That sounds like great work, BE.
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Thanks Eric :)
The display only really worked properly with XP MCE and then only if you used Media Centre. I used MediaPortal at the time, for which someone did write a driver, but I could never get remote support to work properly and using a keyboard was definitely not wife friendly. The machine sat idle for at least a year, if not two and then I decided to do something about it. As some of the RAM has been robbed in the past, and its an old dual core P4 I put Linux on it for the lighter weight and then XBMC for media.
All the media itself is shared off the server downstairs over the network, so all the Artisan does is basically play stuff, while the server handles all the databases and TV services.
That not working display was letting it down though and really bugging me......Hence this :D
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You really are rather clever. Well done :)
Unfortunately my dabbles with Linux came to a sad halt many years ago due to unsupported drivers on one machine for a network card and sound card on other... and it put me off having to compile my own drivers as I didnt know where to turn. I stuck with it for a while with one machine not being able to get online and the other having no sound, but after a while one machine was retired, and on the other I reclaimed the HD space.
(yep you have permission to laugh in view of my current nvidia issue) ::)
Soon after I became very involved in the adsl stuff, ISP communities etc etc and never found time to go back to it. I believe some of the distros are much more user friendly these days, and there is more support when it comes to hardware, but its still one of those a-round-tuits. :/
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Thanks kitz but I'm really not :-[
Most of the hard work was already done by others, and it was really a case of putting it all together and making it work !!
It isn't hard to compile from source. Usually the source comes with some files that tell the compiler how to put the source files together and where to install them once done. Typically like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Configure_script).
My 10 year old daughter has Ubuntu 12.04lts on her laptop. She can do all she did with Win 7 except none of the software has cost me any money and all her hardware was supported immediately. She knows nothing of a terminal window or bash or the GNU compiler because she doesn't need to but it's still all there by default.
Anyway, I digress. So far I haven't modified any of the original XBMC code however that's about to change :o The current set of extra icons doesn't include some specific things I would like such as lighting the 'radio' icon for an audio only internet stream as I tend to only listen to radio this way now.
Now that the basics are down and done and all working correctly, I can tweak a few things ;)
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Couple of photo's showing the display in action. Annoyingly, the manufacturer chose to implement the disk activity icon in reverse, so lit means no activity :shrug2:
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Couple of photo's showing the display in action. Annoyingly, the manufacturer chose to implement the disk activity icon in reverse, so lit means no activity :shrug2:
Couldn't you swap the logic in the software? :-\
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Couldn't you swap the logic in the software? :-\
Yeah easily, if there were any software driving that icon :( Its wired in the same way as a standard HDD LED indicator off the m/board header. I presume (although I do not know for certain), that upon disappearing into the display connectors, some form of NOT is applied to it. AFAIK, there is no easy way to rectify it.