[mythtv-users] Interesting LCD Display

[stuart]

Bob Wiegand wrote:
> Yeechang Lee wrote:
>> The tarball avaialble at mini-box.com is a CVS version of 0.5.2. Since
>> I prefer using RPMs whenever possible, and since I can't figure out
>> why checkinstall (which auto-builds packages directly from source)
>> isn't working on my 64-bit Centos frontend yet, and since the compiled
>> version of the CVS lcdproc at mini-box.com is for i386 only, I
>> compiled from source then manually copied picolcd.so into
>> /usr/lib64/lcdproc.
>>
>> With the above the 20x4 display works, with the following caveats:
>>
>> * The backlight is very dim compared to how it is when the machine is
>>   first powered up. I am not sure whether it's something that can be
>>   fixed within LCDd.conf or if the variance between the stock RPM and
>>   the CVS picolcd.so driver is causing it.
>>
>> * Restarting LCDd from the command line with the stock RedHat-style
>>   init scripts in the RPM causes it to output tons of data to the
>>   screen (so much so that even logging out won't kill it, over SSH at
>>   least). Also, this means that LCDd, when started near the end of the
>>   boot cycle, beeps repeatedly until (I think) stdout from the driver
>>   is redirected. Fiddling with the log level and output options in
>>   LCDd.conf has no effect as far as I can tell. Again, unclear if this
>>   is something the driver mix is causing.
>>
>> I need to try using a different LCDproc package and see if that helps
>> these issues, and/or just bite the bullet and completely install the
>> CVS LCDproc from source.
> 
> I also see the backlight problem. I sent an email to mini-box customer
> support and they indicated that a new version was coming out soon
> that should fix it.
> 
> The messages are because the driver code from mini-box uses fprintf(stderr,)
> statements for logging. This is different than the normal release code.
> It should be possible to redirect stderr to /dev/null.
> 
> I haven't tried the IR either.
> 
> Bob
> 

WRT the IR on the mini-box.com's picoLCD (a multiple line USB LCD 
display w/an IR-receiver and buttons):

It's been pointed out I don't google well - here's a very interesting post:

> http://lists.omnipotent.net/pipermail/lcdproc/2008-September/012290.html

...I've been told (after asking: "why not use LIRC for the IR-receiver") 
that a patch is needed as the display and IR-receiver in the picoLCD 
appear as the same USB device (i.e. ether one needs to solve for a 
combination Display & IR-receiver in LCDproc or LIRC).

So, unless this patch is already in LCDproc (it's only been 20 days 
since the above link was posted), I don't think the picoLCD's IR 
receiver will work with LCDproc.