LCDproc, MythTV and MX6. Help needed...

[fridsten]

Hi!

I've built an HTPC based on a Via Epia. I tried connecting a HD44780 compatible display to the parallel port, but the signal current from the Epia is just 3.3V, which isn't enough.

To solve this, I bought a Matrix Orbital MX6 without buttons. But I can't get it to show anything more than nonsense characters.

It's running Ubuntu 6.10 with MythTV 0.19 and LCDproc 0.4.5.

Can anybody help me sort this out? I'm new to this but I really need to get this to work.

Thanks in advance!
/Fredrik from Swedn

[Raquel]

Hello fridsten,

Thanks for your post.

When you see garbage characters, most likely the problem is baud rate. Please make sure that the application and the module has the same baud rate. With the MX6, its 19200.

Please let me know how it turns out.

Thanks,

[fridsten]

I've checked the baud rate, and it's set to 19200. I've installed the latest debian package of MythTV, and apparently it installed lcdproc automatically. Everything seems to be in order, but it still shows nonsense characters.

Now it's running MythTV, version 0.20-svn20070122-0.0ubuntu6~edgy1 and LCDproc 0.5.0-1.

I just don't know what to do about it. I haven't seen any guide on how to control the MX6 with MythTV and LCDproc, but I thought that the MtxOrb driver would work.

My display doesn't have any keys, but that shouldn't be causing any problems, right?

I also must admit that I don't know how to check if LCDproc is actually running...

This is what the relevant parts of my LCDd.conf looks like:

[server]
Driver=MtxOrb
Bind=127.0.0.1
Port=13666
ReportLevel=3
#ReportToSyslog=yes
#ReportToSyslog=yes
WaitTime=5
User=nobody
#ServerScreen=no
#Foreground=no
DriverPath=/home/mythtv/lcd/

[MtxOrb]
Device=/dev/ttyUSB0
Size=20x2
Backlight=yes
Contrast=255
Speed=19200
Type=lkd
LeftKey=A
RightKey=B
EnterKey=C
UpKey=D
DownKey=E
EscapeKey=F
keypad_test_mode=no

[Raquel]

Hi fridsten,

If you please close all applications that communicate with the display. Power up the display (plug it in). Does it show the startup screen properly?

[fridsten]

If you please close all applications that communicate with the display. Power up the display (plug it in). Does it show the startup screen properly?

Yes it does.

[fridsten]

I've investigated some more. Somehow it seems like the driver is missing.
First I stopped the server.

Code: Select all

sudo /etc/init.d/LCDd stop

Then I tried starting LCDd with the Matrix Orbital driver.

Code: Select all

fredrik@HTPC:~$ sudo LCDd -d MtxOrb
MtxOrb: Speed must be 1200, 2400, 9600 or 19200. Using default value of 19200 baud!
MtxOrb: /dev/lcd device file missing!
Driver load failed, return code < 0
Could not load driver MtxOrb
There is no output driver
Critical error: main.c:238, abort

But I find the files MtxOrb.c, MtxOrb.h and MtxOrb.o in the directory where LCDd.conf says that they should be, i.e. /home/mythtv/lcd.

Oh! Now I just noticed that it says that the device file is missing. I guess I have to make a symlink to /dev/ttyUSB0...

Ok... I just did that, and when trying "sudo LCDd -d MtxOrb", the display just went black.

Here's the output in the console (without the license stuff):

Code: Select all

MtxOrb: Speed must be 1200, 2400, 9600 or 19200. Using default value of 19200 baud!
LCDd 0.4.5, LCDproc Protocol 0.3
Part of LCDproc

LCDd 0.4.5? I thought it was 0.5.0-1, but that might just have been LCDproc. Shouldn't they be the same?

Edit: Yes, I'm still confused.

[Raquel]

Hi fridsten,

Does linux have some kind of terminal emulator? Eg. Hyperterminal in Windows? We need to take LCDProc out of the picture first to narrow down the problem.

Can you re-install the drivers for the MX? Unfortunately I do not know how to do this in Linux.