LCDd (8)

NAME

LCDd - LCDproc server daemon

SYNOPSIS

LCDd [-hf] [-c config] [-d driver] [-i bool] [-a addr] [-p port] [-u user] [-w time] [-r level] [-s bool]

DESCRIPTION

LCDd is the server part of LCDproc, a daemon which listens to a certain port (normally 13666) and displays information on an LCD display. It works with several types and sizes of displays.

Most settings of LCDd are configured through its configuration file /etc/LCDd.conf, some of them can be overridden using command line options. Before running LCDd you should carefully read through that file and modify everything necessary according to your needs. Otherwise you might encounter LCDd not running properly on your system.

To make full use of LCDd, a client such as lcdproc(1), lcdexec(1), or lcdvc is required.

OPTIONS

Available options are:

-h

Display help screen

-c config

Use a configuration file other than /etc/LCDd.conf

-d driver

Specify a driver to use (output only to first), overriding the Driver parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

-f

Run in the foreground, overriding the Foreground parameter in the config file's [Server] section. The default, if not specified in the config file, is to daemonize LCDd as it is intended to operate in the background.

-i bool

Tell whether the to enable (1) or disable (0) showing the LCDproc server screen in n the screen rotation, overriding ServerScreen in the config file's [Server] section.

-w waittime

Time to pause at each screen (in seconds), overriding the WaitTime parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

-a addr

Bind to network address addr, overriding the Bind parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

-p port

Listen on port port for incoming connections, overriding the Port parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

-u user

Run as user user, overriding the User parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

-s bool

Output messages to syslog (1) or to stdout (0), overriding the ReportToSyslog parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

-r level

Set reporting level to level, overriding th ReportLevel parameter in the config file's [Server] section.

SUPPORTED DRIVERS

Currently supported display drivers include:

bayrad

BayRAD LCD modules by EMAC Inc.

CFontz

CrystalFontz CFA-632 and CFA-634 serial LCD displays

CFontzPacket

CrystalFontz CFA-533, CFA-631, CFA-633 and CFA-635 serial/USB LCD displays

curses

Standard video display using the (n)curses library

CwLnx

serial/USB displays by Cwlinux (www.cwlinux.com

ea65

VFD front panel display on Aopen XC Cube EA65 media barebone

EyeboxOne

LCD display on the EyeboxOne

futaba

The Futaba TOSD-5711BB VFDisplay on Elonex Artisan/Scaleo Media Centre PCs

g15

LCD display on the Logitech G15 keyboard

glcd

generic driver for graphical LCDs with FreeType rendering support. This driver supports the following sub-drivers (a.k.a. connection types):

glcd2usb

Till Harbaum's open source/open hardware GLCD2USB (www.harbaum.org/till/glcd2usb

picolcdgfx

picoLCD 256x64 Sideshow graphic LCD (Mini-Box.com)

png

Write out screens as PNG images

serdisplib

Uses serdisplib (serdisplib.sourceforge.net for output

t6963

Toshiba T6963 based LCD displays (graphic mode)

glcdlib

graphical LCDs supported by graphlcd-base

glk

Matrix Orbital GLK Graphic Displays

hd44780

Hitachi HD44780 LCD displays. This driver supports the following sub-drivers (a.k.a. connection types):

4bit

LCD 4bit-mode, connected to a PC parallel port

8bit

LCD 8bit-mode, connected to a PC parallel port

serialLpt

LCD in 4bit-mode through a 4094 shift register

winamp

LCD in 8bit-mode using WinAmp-wiring, connected to a PC parallel port

picanlcd

LCD driven by a PIC-an-LCD chip/board by Dale Wheat, connected to a serial port

lcdserializer

LCD driven by a PIC16C54-based piggy-back board, connected to a serial port

los-panel

LCD driven by an Atmel AVR based board, connected to a serial port

vdr-lcd

???, connected to a serial port

vdr-wakeup

VDR-Wake module by Frank Jepsen (www.jepsennet.de/vdr

pertelian

Pertelian X2040 module (pertelian.com

lis2

LIS2 from VLSystem (www.vlsys.co.kr connected to USB

mplay

MPlay Blast from VLSystem (www.vlsys.co.kr connected to USB

usblcd

LCD device from Adams IT Services (www.usblcd.de

bwctusb

USB-to-HD44780 converter by BWCT (www.bwct.de

lcd2usb

Till Harbaum's open source/open hardware LCD2USB (www.harbaum.org/till/lcd2usb

usbtiny

Devices based on Dick Streefland's USBtiny firmware

uss720

USS-720 USB-to-IEEE 1284 Bridge (Belkin F5U002 USB Parallel Printer Adapters)

usb4all

Sprut's open source / open hardware USB-4-all (www.sprut.de

ftdi

USB connection via a FTDI FT2232D chip in bitbang mode

i2c

LCD in 4-bit mode driven by PCF8574(A) / PCA9554(A), connected via I2C bus

piplate

Adafruit RGB Positive 16x2 LCD+Keypad for Raspberry Pi

spi

LCD with KS0073 or equivalent in serial mode, connected via SPI bus

pifacecad

PiFace Control and Display for the Raspberry Pi (www.piface.org.uk

ethlcd

TCP connection using open source/open hardware ethlcd (manio.skyboo.net/ethlcd

raspberrypi

LCD driven by the GPIO pins of a Raspberry Pi

gpio

LCD connection via GPIO pins controlled by the linux sysfs interface

i2500vfd

140x32 pixel VFD Display of the Intra2net Intranator 2500 appliance

icp_a106

ICP Peripheral Communication Protocol alarm/LCD board used in QNAP devices and 19" rack cases made by ICP

imon

iMON IR/VFD modules in cases by Soundgraph/Ahanix/Silverstone/Uneed/Accent

imonlcd

iMON IR/LCD modules in cases by Soundgraph/Ahanix/Silverstone/Uneed/Accent/Antec

irtrans

IRTrans IR/VFD modules in cases by Ahanix (e.g. MCE303) and possibly others May require irserver (www.irtrans.de/en/download/linux.php to be running for connectivity.

IOWarrior

Code Mercenaries IOWarrior

irman

IrMan infrared (input)

joy

Joystick driver (input)

lb216

LB216 LCD displays

lcdm001

kernelconcepts.de 20x4 serial LCD displays

lcterm

serial LCD terminal from Helmut Neumark Elektronik (www.neumark.de

linux_input

Linux event devices (input)

lirc

Infrared (input)

lis

L.I.S MCE 2005 20x2 VFD (vlsys.co.kr

MD8800

VFD displays in Medion MD8800 PCs

mdm166a

Futuba MDM166A displays

ms6931

MSI-6931 displays in 1U rack servers by MSI

mtc_s16209x

MTC_S16209x LCD displays by Microtips Technology Inc

MtxOrb

Matrix Orbital displays (except Matrix Orbital GLK displays)

mx5000

LCD display on the Logitech MX5000 keyboard

NoritakeVFD

Noritake VFD Device CU20045SCPB-T28A

Olimex_MOD_LCD1x9

Olimex MOD-LCD1x9 14 segment display

rawserial

Dumps the entire framebuffer to the serial port at a configurable rate.

picolcd

Mini-box.com USB LCD (PicoLCD 20x4 & picoLCD 20x2)

pyramid

LCD displays from Pyramid (www.pyramid.de

sdeclcd

Watchguard Firebox LCD display based on SDEC LMC-S2D20 (www.sdec.com.tw

sed1330

SED1330/SED1335 (aka S1D13300/S1D13305) based graphical displays

sed1520

122x32 pixel graphic displays based on SED1520 controllers

serialPOS

Driver for Point Of Sale ("POS") devices using various protocols (currently AEDEX only)

serialVFD

Text VFDs of various manufacturers, see LCDproc user-documentation for further details.

shuttleVFD

Shuttle VFD (USB-based)

sli

Wirz SLI driver (unknown)

stv5730

STV5730A on-screen display chip

SureElec

LCD devices from SURE electronics (www.sureelectronics.net

svga

VGA monitors using svgalib

t6963

Toshiba T6963 based LCD displays (text mode)

text

Standard "hard-copy" text display

tyan

LCD module in Tyan Barebone GS series

ula200

ULA-200 device from ELV (www.elv.de

vlsys_m428

VFD/IR combination in case MonCaso 320 from Moneual

yard2

yard2 LCD module

xosd

On Screen Display on X11

Multiple drivers can be used simultaneously; thus, for example, a Matrix Orbital display (MtxOrb driver) can be combined with an infrared driver (irmanin driver).

INVOCATION

LCDd -d MtxOrb -d joy

The invocation example above will start LCDd reading its configuration from the default configuration file /etc/LCDd.conf but overriding the drivers specified therein with the Matrix Orbital driver and the Joystick input driver.

LCDPROC CLIENT-SERVER PROTOCOL

There is a basic sequence:

1. Open a TCP connection to the LCDd server port (usually 13666).

2. Say "hello"

3. The server will return some information on the type

of display available.

4. Define (and use) a new screen and its widgets.

5. Close the socket when done displaying data.

CLIENT COMMANDS

There are many commands for the client to send to the LCDd server:

hello

This starts a client-server session with the LCDd server; the server will return a data string detailing the type of display and its size.

client_set -name name

Set the client's name.

screen_add #id

Add a new screen to the display.

screen_del #id

Remove a screen from the display.

screen_set #id [-name name] [-wid width] [-hgt height] [-priority prio] [-duration int] [-timeout int] [-heartbeat mode] [-backlight mode] [-cursor mode] [-cursor_x xpos] [-cursor_y ypos]

Initialize a screen, or reset its data.

widget_add #screen #id type [-in #frame]

Add a widget of type type to screen #screen.

widget_del #screen #id

Delete widget #id from screen #screen.

widget_set #screen #id data

Set the data used to define a particular widget #id on screen #screen.

HEARTBEAT MODES

Valid heartbeat mode values (for the screen_set command) are:

on

Display pulsing heart symbol.

off

No heartbeat display.

open

Use client's heartbeat setting. This is the default.

BACKLIGHT MODES

Valid backlight mode values (for the screen_set command) are:

on

Turn backlight on.

off

Turn backlight off

toggle

Turn backlight off when it is on and vice versa.

open

Use client's backlight setting. This is the default.

blink

Blinking backlight

flash

Flashing blacklight

Priorities

Valid priority settings (used in the screen_set command) are as follows:

input

The client is doing interactive input.

alert

The screen has an important message for the user.

foreground

an active client

info

Normal info screen, default priority.

background

The screen is only visible when no normal info screens exists.

hidden

The screen will never be visible.

For compatibility with older versions of clients a mapping of numeric priority values is also supported:

1 - 64

foreground

65 - 192

normal

193 - (infinity)

background

An example of how to properly use priorities is as follows:

Imagine you're making an mp3 player for lcdproc. When the song changes, it's nice to display the new name immediately. So, you could set your screen's priority to foreground, wait for the server to display (or ignore) your screen, then set the screen back to normal. This would cause the mp3 screen to show up as soon as the one on screen was finished, then return to normal priority afterward.

Or, let's say your client monitors the health of hospital patients. If one of the patients has a heart attack, you could set the screen priority to alert, and it would be displayed immediately. It wouldn't even wait for the previous screen to finish. Also, the display would stay on screen most of the time until the user did something about it.

WIDGET TYPES

Widgets can be any of the following:

string

A text string to display (as is).

hbar

A horizontal bar graph.

vbar

A vertical bar graph.

title

A title displayed across the top of the display, within a banner.

icon

A graphic icon.

scroller

A scrolling text display, scrolling either horizontally or vertically.

frame

A container to contain other widgets, permitting them to be referred to as a single unit. A widget is put inside a frame by using the -in #id parameter, where #id refers to the id of the frame.

num

Displays a large decimal digit

Widgets are drawn on the screen in the order they are created.

SETTING WIDGET DATA

In the widget_set command, the data argument depends on which widget is being set. Each widget takes a particular set of arguments which defines its form and behavior:

string x y text

Displays text at position (x,y).

title text

Uses text as title to display.

hbar x y length

Displays a horizontal bar starting at position (x,y) that is length pixels wide.

vbar x y length

Displays a vertical bar starting at position (x,y) that is length pixels high.

icon x y name

Displays the icon name at position (x,y).

scroller left top right bottom direction speed text

The text defined will scroll in the direction defined. Valid directions are h (horizontal) and v (vertical). The speed defines how many "movements" (or changes) will occur per frame. A positive number indicates frames per movement; a negative number indicates movements per frame.

frame left top right bottom wid hgt dir speed

Frames define a visible "box" on screen, from the (left, top) corner to the (right, bottom) corner. The actual data may be bigger, and is defined as wid (width) by hgt (height); if it is bigger, then the frame will scroll in the direction (dir) and speed defined.

num x int

Displays large decimal digit int at the horizontal position x, which is a normal character x coordinate on the display. The special value 10 for int displays a colon.

BUGS

If LCDd seems not to work as expected, try to run it in the foreground with reporting level set to maximum and reporting to stderr. This can be achieved without changes to the config file by using the command line:

LCDd -f -r 5 -s 0

FILES

/etc/LCDd.conf, LCDd's default configuration file

SEE ALSO

lcdproc-config(5), lcdproc(1), lcdexec(1)

AUTHOR

Many people have contributed to LCDd. See the CREDITS file for more details.

All questions should be sent to the lcdproc mailing list. The mailing list, and the newest version of LCDproc, should be available from here:

               www.lcdproc.org

LEGAL STUFF

The lcdproc package is released as "WorksForMe-Ware". In other words, it is free, kinda neat, and we don't guarantee that it will do anything in particular on any machine except the ones it was developed on.

It is technically released under the GNU GPL license (you should have received the file, "COPYING", with LCDproc) (also, look on www.fsf.org for more information), so you can distribute and use it for free -- but you must make the source code freely available to anyone who wants it.

For any sort of real legal information, read the GNU GPL (GNU General Public License). It's worth reading.