NEWS

Due to being very busy with building a house for my family, there's been few progress with lcd4linux in the last year. The last release was 0.10.0-RC2, a release candidate, but as its more than a year old, and ther were a lot of enhancements in the meantime, I decided to skip 0.10.0 completely and release 0.11.0

These are the major changes since 0.10.0:

• new drivers: CwLinux CW12832, PHAnderson serial-to-HD44780 adapter boards, ULA200, 4D Systems serial displays, IRLCD, picoLCD Graphic, st2205, Pertelian
• new plugins: netinfo, netdev, w1retap, hddtemp, strftime_tz, FIFO, asterisk, button_exec, gps
• Evaluator enhancements: string relational operators (eq, ne, gt, ge, lt, le), short circuit evaluation
• other enhancements: update charset for Crystalfontz Model 632 and 634, keypad support for lcm162, pingpong scrolling, automatic marquee scrolling, buttons for X11 driver, major MPD enhancements

Have fun!

Today I put together the second Release Cadidate of LCD4Linux-0.10.1. You can download it here. If you are using Subversion, you can use the branch 0.10.1.

There are only few changes since 0.10.1-RC1:

• widget_bar nasty typo fixed
• compilation with kernel 2.6.21 fixed
• plugin_mpd new functions and some fixes
• CwLinux keypad and firmware support
• plugin_proc_stat new subfields iowait, irq and softirq for Kernel 2.6 added
• plugin_file bug with empty files fixed
• Crystalfontz keypad support for 631 fixed
• picoLCD linker error fixed
• plugin_imon new functions imon::quantity and imon::status
• compiler warnings on x86_64 fixed
• plugin_string strstr() and substr() added.

Any feedback on this release candidate is welcome!

Thanks to Martin Hejl (who kicked me in the ass) I put together the first Release Cadidate of LCD4Linux-0.10.1. You can download it here. If you are using Subversion, a branch called 0.10.1 has been created.

Here's a short (and probably incomplete) list of changes since 0.10.0:

• GPO's are back!
• new drivers: WincorNixdorf, LPH7508, Crystalfontz CF635, LUIse, LCD2USB, LEDMatrix, USBHUB, Logitech G-15, picoLCD, Electronic Assembly
• updated drivers: TREFON, Crystalfontz, BWCT, LCD-Linux, serdisplib, M50530, T6963
• new widgets: Image, Timer, Keypad, GPO
• new plugins: file, mpd, string::strupper(), KVV, iconv
• dynamic properties for most widgets (evaluated at runtime)
• bold font for graphic displays
• Layers
• graphic subsystem changed to full-color RGBA
• HD44780 power supply from parport
• lots of minor fixes and enhancements

Any feedback on this release candidate is welcome!

Finally I decided to migrate the whole repository (with history! thanks to Tailor and Sam!) from the SourceForge CVS repository to a Subversion repository managed by Trac. Now the Source Browser and Time Line are filled with life, and I think this looks great!

Please have a look at the Download page for details on how to use the subversion repository!

Note that the CVS repository on SourceForge will not be updated any longer; I'm looking forward to close it somehow…

Till Harbaum (the guy behind LCD2USB) developed a real big LED display called LEDMATRIX, and added support for it to LCD4Linux. Now, that's what I call a huge display

The SourceForge Team did rearrange their CVS servers lately, so the hostname for (anonymous and developer) CVS access did change! The correct CVS hostname for lcd4linux is lcd4linux.cvs.sourceforge.net. See the download page for details.

Edit 2007-01-14: Forget about that. We switched to Subversion, and the repository is managed by Trac. See the download page for details.

Thanks to Wolfgang Astleitner and his great serdisplib library, LCD4Linux runs on the graphic display made by INCLUD, which has been described in the german computer magazine c't.

Some more preview pictures can be found here.

Since 2006-04-12 the hardware page for c't includ usb display are added to the serdislib. c't includ usb display at the serdisplib Page.

Till Harbaum developed a cheap (about 5 to 10 Euros without display and pcb) do-it-yourself USB adapter for HD44780-based displays, and wrote a LCD4Linux driver. Amazing!

Thanks to Theo Schneider, we got a driver for these really nice displays from LCDShop24 using the LCD-USB-Interface by Wallbraun Electronics.

This driver supports loading of a background image, that's why the result looks that cool.

It appears that these displays are currently not available.

“ By the electrical and electronics equipment law and thereby, entered into force since March 06 , we saw ourselves to connected disproportionately high costs unfortunately to adjust forced the production and the selling of the diagram displays for the time being.”

This is a real shame.

Support for GPO's (General Purpose Output's) has been added to lcd4linux again. At the time of writing this, only the HD44780 and LPH7508 drivers have support for GPO's, but the framework is done, and other drivers will follow soon!

GPO's are treated as a special form of widgets and are mapped in the layout section.

Thanks to Norbert Tretkowski there's a lcd4linux package in the official debian unstable repository.

http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/lcd4linux

I proudly announce the birth of David, our first child, on 9. September 2005.

I'm a little bit disappointed that he hasn't got a display, not even a small one

He's a geek baby, so he already set up his own homepage: http://home.pages.at/david05

I'm afraid he will eat up all my spare time in the next weeks, so there will be not too much time left for lcd4linux

A good day starts with a new release…

changes between 0.9.* and 0.10.0:

• nearly everything!

changes between 0.10.0-RC1 and 0.10.0:

• new driver 'LCDTerm'
• new driver 'LCD-Linux'
• new driver 'SimpleLCD'
• new driver 'Trefon'
• new driver 'serdisplib'
• new plugin 'statfs'
• new plugin 'python'
• new functions 'min()' and 'max()'
• HD44780 supports multiple displays
• HD44780 software-controlled backlight
• M50530 supports displays with different internal layout
• plugins initialize on first-use (no more i2c and mysql warnings on startup)
• Evaluator speedup

There's a new driver called serdisplib which uses the great serdisplib library from Wolfgang Astleitner to control various displays.

serdisplib is (or was) a library to drive serial displays with built-in controllers.\

Starting with version 1.95, this limitation is no longer true because support was extended to parallel driven displays. anyhow: the name 'serdisplib' will not change.

The serial in serial display characterises the way of how the data is transferred to the display controller: data is sent bit by bit using a single input line. Several (few) other lines are controlling things like timing (clock), data or command, …

supported displays amongst others are:

• Nokia 3210, 3310, 3315, 3330, 3350, 3410, 5110, 5120, 5130, 5160, 6110, 6150, 6210, 7110
• Ericsson A1018, T20, T28, T29
• SED 133x series
• SED 153x series (ALPS LSU7S1011A, Optrex 323)
• NEC 21a pager (skyper)
• Toshiba T6963

kudos to Wolfgang for this great piece of software!

Thanks to Sebastian, lcd4linux compiles and runs on MIPS embedded linux!

What you see here is a Asus WLAN-Harddisk, where the firmware has been replaced with linux. LCD4Linux controls a BWCT USB display.

This is cool stuff, isn't it?

After quite a long time, there's a new release of LCD4Linux. This code has been stable for nearly a year now, but lacked documentation. For there's been a fundamental redesign, I didn't release without docs. But now, as we have the wiki, documenting is that easy that I decided to release a candidate (to put some pressure on us developers

The release is avaliable from the Sourceforge Files Page: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1310

Please test and enjoy!

Today I changed the homepage links on SourceForge and Freshmeat, and announced the new Homepage on lcd4linux-users. So the Wiki goes online!

The driver is finished, works fine, and is available from CVS. Hey, libusb programming is that easy!

open systems ag from switzerland donated such a Nexcom machine equipped with a small 16×2 display, and a little keypad with four keys. Thanks a lot!

The display is already working with a slightly modified HD44780 driver, and I can poll for keypresses. This means LCD4Linux will soon support keypads!

The german company BWCT produces a cute little interface board to connect a standard HD44780 display to the USB bus. I mailed them today, got an answer immediately, and a development sample is on its way to me. So LCD4Linux will support their interfaces very soon!

I just received a complete CompactTerminals set donated by Beckmann+Egle, including a 20×4 Display, a I/O module, a keyboard module, and a LAN module! Thank you guys! \

Especially the LAN module is really cool stuff: I can connect a display via ethernet, and watch the status of my server (which is in another room). This is exactly what I've been looking for! \

These displays and the extension modules will soon be supported by the CVS version, which will be released as 0.10 as soon as we finished the documentation.

I just uploaded the (german language) slides, they are available for OpenOffice Impress or as PDF.

I will give a talk about LCD4Linux on Saturday, May 08 2004, on the Grazer LinuxTage 04. Details about the talk can be found at http://www.linuxtage.at/?id=39

Here you can find some photos from lcd4linux at the LinuxDay 03 in Dornbirn/Austria.\

Additional Photos can be found on the LinuxDay Homepage, on the fli4l Gallery and on Till Kamppeter's page.

Thanks to Thomas Siedentopf from SuSE in Nuremberg, lcd4linux is available as binary packages for different SuSE distributions (currently 8.1, 8.2 and the brand-new 9.0)

Stefan Krister from the fli4l/eisfair team invited me to the LinuxDay 03 in Dornbirn/Austria on Nov 15 2003. I will be present at the fli4l/eisfar stand, showing some displays, talking to a lot of people, and having a good time! I'd be glad to meet you there!

This release includes some major enhancements:

• Icons! Animations! Heartbeat!
• HD44780 4-bit-mode (thanks to Martin Hejl)
• HD44780 improved timings (thanks to Ole Dreessen)
• double-buffering for all drivers (should improve performance and lower CPU usage a lot!)

Think of animations, icons, heartbeat, ….\

Note that these animated GIF's are not a fake! lcd4linux can produce exactly the above output on your display! In fact, these images were created with lcd4linux's PNG driver.\

This code will be released real soon now ™, therefore I'm looking for beta testers for the code in the CVS!

This release includes small bugfixes and minor enhancements:

• uClibc compatibility (thanks to Luis F. Correia)
• lcd4linux creates and handles its own PID file
• some compiler warnings have been cleaned up

finally…!

Note that the version numbering scheme changed: This is lcd4linux 0.9.9 (instead of 0.99), the next release will be 0.9.10.

Changes in 0.9.9:

• new version number scheme
• moved documentation to web page
• virtual rows, scrolling
• DVB client
• parallel port abstraction
• gcc3 issues
• sensors factor and offset

New drivers in 0.9.9:

• Mitsubishi M50530
• USBLCD
• Toshiba T6963
• MatrixOrbital LK202
• Cwlinux CW12232 CW1602

more than a year after 0.97, there is a new release!

• lots of fixed bugs
• improved signal handling
• uses syslog
• supports GPO's (general purpose outputs, e.g. to connect a LED)
• improved delay loop (no more calibration necessary)
• PNG generation
• curses-based text driver
• plugins: the output of up to 9 external programs can be displayed
• ISDN online/offline status can be displayed with a LED
• APM support
• mail and news client (local mbox, POP, IMAP, NNTP)
• new configure option –with-drivers=<list>
• seti@home client
• simple web-server driver
• supports new (kernel 2.4) ppdev to access parallel port with ioctl()

After quite a long time, I finally managed to release 0.97, which contains a lot of improvements:

• CrystalFontz driver: thanks to Herbert Rosmanith!
• HD44780-driver: thanks to myself
• support for PPP throughput.
• support for Kernel 2.4: disc I/O is determined correctly, and real troughput (bytes, not only packets!) is reported for network interfaces.

• lcd4linux can now swallow on the K Panel! See README.KDE for details.
• This release should fix some of the bugs of the X11 driver.
• You can overwrite entries from the config file by using the command line option '-c key=value'
• Gaps can have a size of -1, which means that they use the size of a pixel.

• This is the first release with a driver for the X Window System.
• The X11-Driver look great, needs only very low cpu time and bandwidth. You will get a smooth display even over a 64kbit ISDN line!
• There's also a raster driver which produces PPM output.
• Many thanks to Herbert Rosmanith for his great work!