[Lcdproc] newbie question

[Joe Henley]

Hi Markus,

I was very encouraged after your initial reply.  Hopefully you'll have 
some time to reply to these follow-up questions.

Also, while the the "off-by-one" issue looks to be fixed (per the notes 
on Sourceforge), have the other items related to the picolcd also been 
fixed?

Thanks again for your help.

Joe Henley

Joe Henley wrote:
> Hi Markus,
> 
> Thanks very much for your reply.
> 
> Markus Dolze wrote:
>> Joe Henley wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I'm a newbie here, so please forgive any un-intended "politically 
>>> incorrect" items.  Also, I'm not a C programmer, so I'm pretty much 
>>> dependent upon what I can find at sites like this.
>>>
>>> Is lcdproc still under development?  The last version is from 2007.  
>>> I see lots and lots of patches; and I see comments about folks not 
>>> getting things to run when patches overlap.  I see alot of notes 
>>> about getting patches incorporated, but it seems none do.  I've 
>>> looked repeatedly at the sourceforge site for updates to the code, 
>>> but patches I see here don't seem to show up there.
>> Yes, there is ongoing development. Unlike other projects we use this 
>> mailing list to submit patches for review. Someone with write access 
>> commits the patches once they have received feedback.
> 
> Ah, OK.  As I confessed earlier, I'm a newbie .... does "commit" mean to 
> incorporate it into the nightly updates?
> 
>> The changelog since 0.5.2 has grown large. Usually you receive the 
>> latest code directly from CVS or by using a 'nightly current build' 
>> from http://lcdproc.sourceforge.net/nightly/.
> 
> Is that OK now?  I saw a message in the archives that the nightlies 
> weren't always current.  Since I don't yet know enough about this to be 
> able to tell when it is, or when it isn't current, I just decided to 
> avoid them.  Probably the wrong thing to do, huh? ....
> 
>> Currently our most important maintainer is away, so changes pile up, 
>> but I commited a few fixes recently.
>>>
>>> I bought a picolcd to use with MythTV and have given up on getting 
>>> support from mini-box.  I hoped to get some here, so I've lurked abit 
>>> to see what's happening.  But I must be missing something, because I 
>>> see alot of folks submitting patches, raising questions and 
>>> suggesting fixes, but nothing seems to be done to the code.
>>>
>>> What am I missing?  Is there some other place to look (other than 
>>> here and the sourceforge site)?
>> As LCDproc is open source anyone can take it and ship modified 
>> versions. Some Linux distributions may contain additional patches.
> 
> Yes, that's part of the problem I'm having with mini-box.  They have a 
> version on their site which they reference as 0.5.2, but which is NOT 
> the same as what you have here.  It's abit confusing, and very 
> frustrating, for someone just getting started (like me).
> 
>>> Thanks for any help/suggestions/guidance/etc.
>>>
>>> Joe Henley
>>>
>>> PS:  Yes, I know I have not indicated my picolcd problems.  But they 
>>> are  all previously listed here by others, and are still open as far 
>>> as I can tell.
>>>
>> If you do need help, as on this list. There are people familiar with 
>> these devices here.
> 
> Thanks for the offer.  I looked back thru the last 4 or 5 months of 
> posts in the archives and picked out the problems/patches others had 
> identified which also looked like ones I'm having.  These include:
> 10/1/08  pavel      "add support"
> 11/2/08  marschall  "picolcd build problems"
> 11/6/08  ekholm     "LCDproc & PicoLCD"
> 1/13/09  dicks      "19 to 20 character"
> 2/2/09   de Bruet   "off by one"
> 2/25/09  de Bruet   various
> 
> Again, it's a newbie picking these out, so I might be wrong on some.
> 
> So if these were fixed (I assume that means "committed") then I should 
> be able to move forward on getting my picolcd 4x20 to work.
> 
>> Regards,
>> Markus
> 
> Oh, while I may be a newbie, I can probably help by doing any testing 
> you'd like.  I'd be happy to do that.  As indicated before, I have a 
> picolcd 4x20 from mini-box.  Right now it's connected to a miniMyth 
> front end running version 0.21.0-53 (kernel is 2.6.25).
> 
> Thanks again for all your help.  It is very much appreciated.
> 
> Joe Henley
>