[mythtv-users] iMON VFD LCD driver for SilverStone LC14/16 cases

[Bob Sully]

>> On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Bob Sully <rcs at malibyte.net> 
>> wrote:

     Hi all -

     Recently updated my Myth system from 14.04 to 16.04 (running
     0.28-fixes).

     All seems well at this point except for the fact that the VFD LCD 
panel
     on my case doesn't come up (with LCDd and lcdproc).  The imon 
drivers
     that come with the new kernels don't work with it (the module will 
load
     but the LCD daemon fails to run, as it can't find /dev/lcd0 - "Did 
you
     load the iMON VFD module?" in /var/log/syslog.

     After doing a bit of Googling, I now recall that I had to compile a
     custom driver from Venky to get it to work before, but the download 
link
     is no longer any good, and I can't find the .tgz file anywhere.  
The
     SilverStone site has Windows drivers but not Linux (they point to
     Venky's site for the Linux driver).  Anyone still have a copy of 
that
     imon_vfd.tgz lying around?  It needs to be compiled for the current
     running kernel.

     Thanks!
     Bob


> Hi Bob,
>
> I have an SilverStone LC11m with an iMon VFD display/IR receiver. I'm
> pretty sure I'm no longer using custom code. I was able to get the
> in-kernel drivers working. I don't know if I have the exact same 
> model as
> you though (lsusb shows ID 15c2:ffdc SoundGraph Inc. iMON PAD Remote
> Controller). I do have the following options in 
> /etc/modprobe.d/lirc.conf
> options imon display_type=1 nomouse=1 pad_thresh=28
>
> I think the display_type is the key. Without it, I think it will 
> assume an
> LCD instead of VFD type. Note that I'm using Gentoo so you'll need to 
> put
> those kernel module options where appropriate for Ubuntu.
>
> Karl


Hi, Karl - thanks very much for the reply.  You're right, we do have 
the same hardware, and the in-kernel drivers *do* work.

The /etc/modprobe.d/lirc.conf file was OK as is.  Turns out that the 
reason the driver didn't appear to load was in the LCDd.conf file.  I 
had it set up to use /dev/lcd0, which it always had used previously - 
but for some reason, after the update to 16.04, the driver assigned 
/dev/lcd3 to the VFD panel.  Doh!  (but there are no /dev/lcd0, 1, or 2 
- not sure why... ?)

Happily, the new one creates a symlink, /dev_imon, pointing to the 
correct one (lcd3 in this case), so I just put that symlink into the 
LCDd.conf instead of the actual device (in case it changes again), so 
now all's well!

Thanks again!
Bob
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