LCD screen for your dockstar (cheap! <$5)

I see a /root/st2205term-0.06 directory. That is where the binary should be now.

You didn't specify your keyboard device so I'll assume its /dev/input/event0.

In /etc/rc.local, before the "exit 0"...

# directory where st2205term binary resides
ST2205TERMDIR=/root/st2205term-0.06
# extra directory to search for libraries
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# start up st2205 instance for picframe
$ST2205TERMDIR/st2205term \
    --font=tiny \
    --picframe=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-SITRONIX_MULTIMEDIA-0\:0 \
    --keyboard=/dev/input/event0 \
    --keymap=$ST2205TERMDIR/us.kmap < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# start up st2205term instance for Displaylink
$ST2205TERMDIR/st2205term \
    --font=large \
    --dlo \
    --keyboard=/dev/input/event0 \
    --keymap=$ST2205TERMDIR/us.kmap < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &

This starts two st2205term instances - one for the Picframe and one for Displaylink. They both share the same keyboard device. Make sure there is no old st2205term stuff in the /etc/rc.local file.

-PG

Peter!

Perfect! I can see both monitors at same time and it hotplugs.

You are the Man! :)

Not sure if there is a HUGH font for the monitor , but I can see everything.
Great work.
With this achievement we don't need to do ssh anymore. :)

I wonder if you could make an auto install script, once you get the finishing touches on it that would install it the same for everybody.

Since if somebody has either 5 dollar lcd or any displaylink device , this would be great package.

Maybe ask Jeff if on his debian install page he can have link to your lcd page, he has links to uboot and other stuff, I think this is something that needs to be promoted more, it's a big deal , IMHO.

Peter
I did follow your displaylink stuff from your other thread, do other people have to install any of those packages or will it work for them with just the stuff from your webpage?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2010 06:20PM by rgtaa.

Yay! :-)

There is a "giant" font - I'll add support for that in the next release.

-PG

Peter

I plugged the 5 dollar LCD into all the different ports and it works in hotplug! Way cool.
With the displaymonitor, you just have to hit any key and the monitor turns on to root access, GREAT.
........................................................................................................................
I just needed the lcd display, I went from dynamic internet settings to static and forget to do something, so I could not connect to internet and no ssh in, but I was able to edit the network interfaces and correct the problem using lcd and keyboard. This lcd/keyboard feature will come in handy for me.
.....................................................................................................................
I tried to type startx from root from monitor I was using and it gave "no screens found", not sure if using the screen for root if it can be used to launch startx.



Edited 15 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2010 10:56PM by rgtaa.

petergunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are you sure the pictures appear on the screen
> when they are uploaded?
>
Tests with 2 digital cameras and a portable media player confirmed that you are probably right. When gphoto2 transferred the pictures generated by lcd4linux (yes, at least that part worked, I got a continually refreshed PPM image from lcd4linux) to the LCD device, it would go into 'Docked' or 'Media Transfer' state and depending on the device, it will exit the 'Picture Display' or 'Photo Slideshow' mode or worst blank the LCD. The pictures were transferred but you can't see them until you enter 'Slideshow/Display' mode again. I don't expect the AX20X frames to behave differently though so this is no-go. Pity though. So the LCD hack is still strictly the turf of the st2205 devices.

Peter
My dockstars have pogoplug services on NAND but I was wondering if there is a way to put this keyboard and lcd programs on NAND so we could have ROOT access from NAND. This would be very handy and we could do Jeff's install right from dockstar without SSH.
How big are these programs that it would have to install, I'm not thinking it takes much memory, you would know more then me.
What do you think.

If you know the commands, could you have some type of guide for doing that on NAND.

rtgaa, startx wont work when st2205term is running with --dlo as st2205term will claim the DisplayLink screen before the X-Server gets a chance. If you log in through with the Picframe you should be able to kill the "st2205term --dlo" process then run startx from there.

Im not sure how to build a pogoplug binary? Do you know if they are compatible with debian? Best way would be to compile a native pogoplug binary and run that.

BTW - st2205term v0.07 is out - faster, less memory, no need for libgd, etc. :-)

-PG

Peter
You might want to update your other links since I tried to do it from scratch and ran into problems, I'm thinking , if you have clean jeff's debian install, maybe see if using your guide you run into any problems, there may be some steps to do before , and some of the lines are wrong, I see that you changed some of them. You have made so many GREAT improvements, that you might have the old way programs still there.

I'm thinking maybe have one method that includes both 5 lcd and displaylink , because even if others have one or the other, the way you showed me works for either or both, and hotplugs. Having all those options on your page is confusing. And maybe have just one mak configure option since , both 5 dollar lcd and displaylink will work.

You are saying some things are not needed, were they removed from the top of the page.

I'm having problems with 0.07 and I'm trying to find out what I'm doing wrong, 0.06 works great for me, don't know if I have to change stuff in my rc.local file. I just changed the 0.06 to 0.07 but are other paths changed?

You posted the correct settings above so I could run 0.06 , maybe make new one here so I can cut and paste. All I changed was the
ST2205TERMDIR=/root/st2205term-0.07
line ... it was -0.06 before.

I'll stay at 0.06 for now, but I'll test it again , when you get 0.08. Thank you for including giant font, I am eager to check that font out.



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2010 05:36PM by rgtaa.

Well, Peter, I tried to update the Picframe wiki ( http://picframe.spritesserver.nl/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ) as much as I could. From what I can see of available models and what both of us have been able to do... Looks like only the DP152 and Shift3 Fats are the easily available hackable LCD models. Updated the device list to say those two are probably the best bet at this point. Also uploaded my m_shift3 files to a filehost and put it on the Wiki. Hopefully we'll see some people checking back and trying to hack their 'unsupported' LCDs again with the information now up.

The keychain LCDs are too cheap and useful for a project like that wiki to go unmaintained and forgotten. I threw in references, where applicable, to generate-hack.pl, this forum and requests to get the information back up to date cause of the attention the Dockstar is getting lately.

Now, if you wanna grab the m_shift3.zip files, maybe there's a way to get rid of that blasted battery icon. ;-) (Attaching here as well in case the filehost I used for linking to the wiki dies...)

Now for st2205term...

Sheeeeit. You've been busy.

Okay, keyboard plugged in. (heh)
Doing everything as su. (double heh, I guess I learned a bit with my LCD issues)
Following directions as-is on your page there. Rote installed.

Your directions say to run as root, but nothing about compiling st2205term inside /root as before. Gonna try it in /home/rat/lcd as I have everything else stored there.

Hrmmm. Interesting.

http://i.imgur.com/caBg8.jpg

;-)

(Man, my cellphone camera SUCKS.)

Something interesting of note. Every time I typed, the battery icon disappeared from screen. If I hit one key and wait, it's approximately 2 seconds before the icon shows up again. I wonder if it can be removed... your method differs from lcd4linux because the icon never disappeared from the screen when the status info refreshed on there.

Very nice, though. Very, very nice.

Tried something.

Left st2205term running, in SSH, I fired up lcd4linux again. lcd4linux drew my screen update without any harm. Killed lcd4linux, hit space bar, got screen refresh and root prompt again.

They coexist. Very nice.

Though it does get a little weird when you try to type while lcd4linux has taken over the screen. Screen gets very glitched and goes mostly back.... only changes update to the LCD when you try to type when lcd4linux is running. So obviously you can't use the prompt in st2205term while lcd4linux is running... But there's no need to kill st2205term if you want to use, say, lcd4linux as a screensaver that can be killed automatically when you type.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2010 05:47PM by rat.

Peter
here is mak line form 0.07

gcc -Wall -g -O2 -DHAVE_ST2205 -DHAVE_DLO -o st2205term st2205term.c -lrote -lst2205 -ldlo



0.06
gcc -Wall -g -O2 -DHAVE_ST2205 -DHAVE_DLO -o st2205term st2205term.c -lrote -lst2205 -lgd -ldlo


the 06 version has that -lgd in it, for the 3rd option, but it's missing from 07 version, that could be correct, but I was just trying to see why 06 works and 07 doesn't.


I had trouble doing this:

cd st2205tool && make && make install

And when I installed some of the others it gave errors, C not working right,



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2010 08:19AM by rgtaa.

rtgaa, I v0.07 uses built-in fonts that come in the file fonts.txt and it cannot run without knowing how to draw characters on the screen so the new "--fontdata=./fonts.txt" is mandatory. You'll have to add this to your /etc/rc.local in order to get it to run like v0.06...

# directory where st2205term binary resides
ST2205TERMDIR=/root/st2205term-0.07
# extra directory to search for libraries
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
# start up st2205 instance for picframe
$ST2205TERMDIR/st2205term \
    --font=tiny \
    --picframe=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-SITRONIX_MULTIMEDIA-0\:0 \
    --keyboard=/dev/input/event0 \
    --fontdata=$ST2205TERMDIR/fonts.txt \
    --keymap=$ST2205TERMDIR/us.kmap < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# start up st2205term instance for Displaylink
$ST2205TERMDIR/st2205term \
    --font=giant \
    --dlo \
    --keyboard=/dev/input/event0 \
    --fontdata=$ST2205TERMDIR/fonts.txt \
    --keymap=$ST2205TERMDIR/us.kmap < /dev/null > /dev/null 2>&1 &

rat/rtgaa, you both asked about running multiple applications and being able to switch between them using keys. A Unix style approach might be to layer applications to achieve this rather than building the functionality into st2205term.

For instance - are you familiar with GNU screen?

To install...

apt-get install screen
echo 'hardstatus alwayslastline "%{=b}%{G} Screen(s): %{b}%w %=%{kG}%C%A  %D, %M/%d/%Y "' > ~/.screenrc

Now, in st2205term you can start screen by running 'screen' from the command line.

Some commands:
CTRL+A then C => create new terminal
CTRL+A then 1 => goto terminal 1
CTRL+A then 2 => goto terminal 2
more info here

Screen is very powerful you get scroll history, can bind commands to keys, split screen etc. etc.

When you replug your picframe or displaylink device you can 'reconnect' to your old screen session by typing 'screen -RD'

-PG

Thanks Peter
I got it to work with your commands.

I can see the difference in font sizes between large and giant on the 5 dollar screen, but I don't see any difference on the monitor, it could be there but it's hard to see it. I only have one monitor and when I switch back and forth between the dockstars using the monitor, it is hard for me to tell the difference between large and giant,it's almost font 8 and font 8.5.


The "screen" program is confusing. I think not all the keys are mapped in, like backspace (it's mapped in if you don't start "screen") but inside screen program it has strange stuff going on, and so I get funny characters on screen from the keys that are not mapped in , and I can't start startx from it because it says program using screen.

I type in screen and it brings up lines to read, the I do control A C and I get new screen, but it's confusing.

Did you try it? Can you get startx to work with "screen".


I just checked, if 5 dollar lcd is on dockstar on reboot, it locks screen and doesn't reboot.

If monitor is attached without 5 dollar lcd attached , it will reboot no problems, so it's the 5 dollar lcd that is locking the dockstar from rebooting.

I can cold boot no problems.

So some type of exit command needs to made for the 5 dollar screen, the displaylink has those commands because I can see it turn off and on a few times, while the 5 dollar screen just hangs there.



Edited 11 time(s). Last edit at 11/28/2010 01:08PM by rgtaa.

> The "screen" program is confusing. I think not all the keys are mapped in, and I can't start startx from it.

screen is worth trying to learn because its amazingly powerful (for all terminals, ssh, etc.) - you can run different commands in the different 'screens' and switch between them using keys, or program keys to launch commands, etc.

Unfortunately, you wont be able to run startx from an s2205term running on your displaylink device because the st2205 term has already 'cliamed' the device and two applications cannot share the same displaylink device.

You should be able to run startx from st2205term running on the Picframe, but you have to make sure that the displaylink st2205term is not running:

pkill -f "st2205term.*--dlo" # stop Displaylink st2205term if it is running
startx # start X-Windows on the Displaylink device

-PG

Peter:

Funny you should mention screen, it was how I was running the LCD and detaching the ssh session so both st2205term and lcd4linux would remain active. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to switch between screen sessions. (Probably because I'm one of those who likes to have a separate terminal open for each session.)

As much as I hate to ask for a device specific feature, would it be trivial enough to code in a command like option like --cursor to have a blinking cursor drawn to the lcd? Some people might like that to see that as an indication that the device isn't frozen, perhaps... but it'd be a quick and dirty way to prevent the battery icon from showing up on the Shift3 Fats.

Between screen and everything else I've been able to do with st2205term so far, though... You've got some of my friends interested in trying to get this setup going for their boxes. ;)

Hi rat, adding a flashing cursor seems reasonable enough. It will have to be off by default though as updating the the Picframe requires pushing new data onto the screen and the 'incremental update' feature of libst2205 doesnt seem to work so a full screen refresh is required.

This is not a huge deal for the Dockstar as its processor is really fast and the Picframe screen is pretty small but it is significant (I'd guess ~1-2% cpu when Picframe is plugged in) but I'd also like st2205term to be usable on slower devices where the impact would be larger so I'll make if off by default. (Displaylink devices do support incremental update so its not such a big deal for them.)

BTW LCD4Linux also has a 'curses' mode. I haven't tried it but you should be able to run LCD4Linux inside st2205term, and even within a GNU screen session within st2205term :-)

I just came across and old USB 1.1 host-to-host cable and tried plugging it into the Dockstar and an Ubuntu PC. After a little ifconfig magic I had a point-to-point usbnet connection over the usb cable. That I could ssh over from my laptop. Not really relevant to st2205term but it is another alternative for direct usb connecting a display (albeit one on a computer) that you might like to view LCD4Linux stats on.

-PG

Huh. Interesting on using the USB Host cable. Certainly does open up the possibilities with what you've started with here.

As far as the screen refresh goes, the device is supposed to be able to handle about 8-9fps maximum, typing continuously isn't too bad on CPU resources, so a 1s on/1s off blink rate at command prompt shouldn't tax it much. Even on USB1.1 and cpu bound hosts.

Ran Lynx, Nano, screen, irssi and silc on the screen today. Everything behaves well, haven't run into any glitches. Everything's looking pretty good on my end.

Hey all,

I bought a Coby DP-152 hoping I could get it working on my headless server. Unfortunately, I'm having difficulty getting any of my Linux machines to recognize the device. Here's the output from lsusb:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 004: ID 1403:0001 Sitronix Digital Photo Frame
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

So it obviously sees the device is plugged in. But here's the output from dmesg:


[ 1637.969039] usb 4-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1638.150251] usb 4-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1638.153462] scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 1638.153988] usb-storage: device found at 4
[ 1638.153992] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 1643.173162] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 1643.177127] scsi scan: INQUIRY result too short (10), using 36
[ 1643.177135] scsi 8:0:0:0: Enclosure m PQ: 5 ANSI: 5
[ 1643.304119] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1643.592356] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1643.880186] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1644.172100] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1644.468064] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1644.761318] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1645.104838] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1645.452314] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1645.772109] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1646.070007] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1646.428114] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1646.732153] usb 4-2: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
[ 1646.909522] scsi 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 13

I also noticed that /dev/sg2 was created. I tried modifying the generate-hack.pl script to allow /dev/sg2 which resulted in it dumping 0 bytes.

Output from ls -al /dev/disk/by-id/:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 240 2010-11-29 11:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 120 2010-11-29 16:20 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-11-29 11:19 ata-ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 ata-ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 ata-ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part2 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 ata-ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part3 -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 ata-ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part5 -> ../../sda5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-11-29 11:19 scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part1 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part2 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part3 -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-11-29 11:19 scsi-SATA_ST9120821AS_5PL0K8FD-part5 -> ../../sda5

Any thoughts on what's wrong and how to fix it?

I should also mention that the verbose output from lsusb is identical to what's found here: http://picframe.spritesserver.nl/wiki/index.php?title=Coby_DP-152#USB_device_infos

All I can suggest, Colin, is to make sure it's in upload mode before you plug it in (if it doesn't do it automatically) and maybe try using a different cable. The cable that came with my Shift3 would fail on all devices (even my mp3 player) for simple things like copying files. I couldn't get a firmware dump off my Shift3 until I swapped the cable with one I knew that was good.

Thanks rat! The USB cable was the main culprit for me. After swapping in a spare cable it worked great. When I tried that new cable on a different machine I re-encountered similar issues, but resolved that by pressing the 'reset' button on the back of the picture frame. Everything is working great now.

Sometimes the most confusing problems have the simplest solutions :p

Colin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sometimes the most confusing problems have the
> simplest solutions :p

Good to hear. I've taken a real liking to having my LCD sitting in the drive cradle if just for the visual feedback that it's purring along.

I got my DP151 today and my research was spot on. Got the correct v5 model and flashed it... though a few things I learned in the process with my Shift3 ended up being invaluable. (Thanks Peter. Heh.)

The screen is, indeed, 90 degrees off, but it's nice in that it matches the Dockstar. I think I still prefer the Shift3, battery icon be damned, because it 'fits'... I didn't want to do the surgery required to rotate the dockstar plug 180 degrees to make the DP151 fit better, so I'm leaving it alone.

From what I can make of it, the DP152 is probably like the Shift3, just thick enough to be lightly wedged into the spot to sit on the USB plug if you don't mind having the Dockstar facing "backwards"... Can you or Peter confirm?

rat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> From what I can make of it, the DP152 is probably
> like the Shift3, just thick enough to be lightly
> wedged into the spot to sit on the USB plug if you
> don't mind having the Dockstar facing
> "backwards"... Can you or Peter confirm?

Yes, this is correct. Would be nice to find a solution so it
could face forwards.

-PG

rat, new st2205term v0.08 is uploaded - faster/better/etc. Supports fast(er) smooth(er) scrolling on Displaylink and... wait for it... blinking cursor support. Can you give it a whirl an see if it fixes your battery indicator ?

Command line option for blinking cursor is --blink - I'll update the web page is a little while.

-PG



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2010 10:02PM by petergunn.

petergunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> wait for it...
> blinking cursor support.

*SSSSSSSSQQQQQQQQQUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!*

*runs out to try it and runs smack into a wall*

petergunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Can you give it a whirl
> an see if it fixes your battery indicator ?

That is just so friggin weird. The battery indicator pops up about every 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 blinks and immediately goes away as that 1/2 blink becomes 1. Still an option to keep in case anyone wants it there for reminder that they have an active console running, though.

rat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> indicator pops up about every 2 1/2 to 3 1/2
> blinks and immediately goes away as that 1/2 blink
> becomes 1.till an option to keep in case anyone
> wants it there for reminder that they have an
> active console running, though.

Doh! Must be on some sort of timer. Dont think that can be fixed unless you mod the firmware somehow.

I'll keep the blink feature in :-)

-PG

petergunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Doh! Must be on some sort of timer. Dont think
> that can be fixed unless you mod the firmware
> somehow.

Yeah. I wouldn't even know what to look for, unless I can find something in hex that would roughly translate to: "Put this ugly icon back up every 2 seconds!" ;)

Peter
I just tried 08.
I can't get the curser to blink

I added a line in rc.local

-- blink \
that looked like the other lines.

I tried
-- blink=yes \
no luck

Also you might want to fix this line towards top of guide
cd st2205tool && make && make install

Shouldn't it be 2 lines because the other install stuff has
cd directory ... but that install looked like 2 lines combined , maybe check it over.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2010 03:51PM by rgtaa.

>-- blink \
--- ^ No space between -- and blink. Try it without the space.