VFD front panel display (Antec Fusion)

[colinjones]

Have been searching the forums and wiki for info on how to get this working on my HTPC case. The only references I can find seem to talk about devices (eg /etc/lcd0) and conf files that simply don't seem to exist on my 0710b3 build. Did a lsusb ... nothing there....

Anybody any idea on how to get this going? I realise that at the moment only Myth (and VDR?) use this and the rest of the time it just shows a clock or something else, but at the moment it just permanently displays a line of _____ and then a couple of different height bars on the far right and never changes even when the system is off! Gotta be able to get something better than that!

Cheers.

Col.

[skerit]

Oh my.. I just bought this case yesterday!

I'm gonna install it tomorrow, so it doesn't work well?

Head over to the ubuntu-forums, I know I saw a thread there which solved *all* the problems (that's why I decided to buy that case )

[nite_man]

Don't worry, guys, LMCE doesn't support VFD displays except a three models: Crystal Fontz USB/RS232, IRTrans - Dign VFD and Media Live LCD/Buttons. The rest can be just used by MythTV or VDR. IMHO it'd be great to have some generic VFD interface which will communicate with LCD server as a client. In that case it'd be doesn't matter what model of VFD you have.

[skerit]

Lol! Then what's not to worry!?

Now you're saying "yeah, tough luck, you bought a useless case" Well, I got the vfd to work now, still have nooo idea how to get that IR receiver to function, though...

*Edit: I got the VFD to work only on the system itself, so I can output my own messages to it, but nothing more (linuxmce doesn't support it, as he said...)

[hari]

Lol! Then what's not to worry!?

Now you're saying "yeah, tough luck, you bought a useless case" Well, I got the vfd to work now, still have nooo idea how to get that IR receiver to function, though...

*Edit: I got the VFD to work only on the system itself, so I can output my own messages to it, but nothing more (linuxmce doesn't support it, as he said...)

should be easy to interface lcdproc from a GSD. iirc it only needs to implement two commands for basic usage (see the existing VFD code/device template)

best regards,
Hari

[totallymaxed]

Don't worry, guys, LMCE doesn't support VFD displays except a three models: Crystal Fontz USB/RS232, IRTrans - Dign VFD and Media Live LCD/Buttons. The rest can be just used by MythTV or VDR. IMHO it'd be great to have some generic VFD interface which will communicate with LCD server as a client. In that case it'd be doesn't matter what model of VFD you have.

Michael I agree it would be good to have a more generalised way to support various VFD's

[gazlang]

I have a soundgraph imon vfd screen on my case. Have it currently running "lcd-stuff" (weather and news feeds) when not watching tv, and myth tv outputs to it fine when tv is on.
You need to use lcd-proc to send to the screen though

[colinjones]

How do you install lcd-proc? It isn't on my system now - tried apt-get install lcd-proc.... says there is no such package...

[skerit]

How do you install lcd-proc? It isn't on my system now - tried apt-get install lcd-proc.... says there is no such package...

Might be an incredible stupid suggestion but ... Have you updated your package list?

The first time you use apt-get on linuxmce the package list is rather empty...

I also believe it's called lcdproc

This thread really helped me, btw: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=306437&highlight=antec+fusion

At least I can manually print things out on the screen

When will somebody get to coding the thing, anyway? Does any developer want to SSH into *my* device (hey, they did this while developping plcbus drivers )

[colinjones]

Not a stupid question, I have no idea how to do that (nor that it needed doing!)

However, you are right, it is lcdproc, and when I tried that it worked fine.

I then followed the instructions in that link you gave... but it fails at:

cat imon-2.6.patch | patch
make -C /usr/src/linux SUBDIRS=$PWD modules
sudo make install

Saying that the directory "linux" doesn't exist - which it doesn't on my system. In there there are "linux-headers..." and "linux-headers...-generic" and I tried both of those instead (problably screwing something up!) but still comes back with errors...

[skerit]

True, true, the original compile failed on my box too, but that's a pretty old thread, meant for a previous ubuntu version. If you read the entire thread (which is a pain, I know) then you can find a solution... Errr, hold on, I'll try to give you my method:

Install lirc and the lirc-modules-kernel version-generic

After this you need to load the lirc_imon module:

modprobe lirc_imon (add "lirc_imon" to your /etc/modules file to start it at boot)

Now it has made a /dev/lcd0 file, except I wasn't able to write to it... so I had to chmod it (and I have to do this after every boot):

chmod 666 /dev/lcd0

And now you can output to the display! (But only up to 32 chars, otherwise it'll give you some error)

echo -n "Hello" > /dev/lcd0


I'm using LMCE 0710 beta 3. I know I need to fix a lot more (like that knob or that infrared thing or the chmod thing) but that's for later

[nite_man]

How do you install lcd-proc? It isn't on my system now - tried apt-get install lcd-proc.... says there is no such package...

Run

Code:

apt-get install lcdproc

It'll install LCDproc for you. Sure if you have iMON VFD display you should install iMON IR driver (it's included into standard LIRC package).

[colinjones]

True, true, the original compile failed on my box too, but that's a pretty old thread, meant for a previous ubuntu version. If you read the entire thread (which is a pain, I know) then you can find a solution... Errr, hold on, I'll try to give you my method:

Install lirc and the lirc-modules-kernel version-generic

After this you need to load the lirc_imon module:

modprobe lirc_imon (add "lirc_imon" to your /etc/modules file to start it at boot)

Now it has made a /dev/lcd0 file, except I wasn't able to write to it... so I had to chmod it (and I have to do this after every boot):

chmod 666 /dev/lcd0

And now you can output to the display! (But only up to 32 chars, otherwise it'll give you some error)

echo -n "Hello" > /dev/lcd0


I'm using LMCE 0710 beta 3. I know I need to fix a lot more (like that knob or that infrared thing or the chmod thing) but that's for later

I did:

sudo apt-get install lirc
 - it asked for confirmation to install and I hit Y
sudo apt-get install lirc-modules-2.6.22-14-generic
 - it ran, didn't ask me to confirm, but did seem to complete with no errors, and said that there was 1 newly installed package
sudo modprobe lirc_imon
no error, just completed

But I do not have a device at /etc/lcd0 or anything beginning with L or l other than loop0 and log....

[gazlang]

See this site:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/LCDproc

I used this to get my vfd working.

Don't have to chmod after every boot, just:

sudo crontab -e

-and add the following line:

@reboot /usr/local/sbin/LCDd -c /home/mythtv/lcd/LCDd.conf

do this instead of the 'Starting LCD PROC from Boot' given on the link

[skerit]

Ugh, rhis is all so very confusing, getting these to work on linux is one thing, getting them to work on lmce is something completely different!

Anyone having any thoughts about this?