Activating the LCD front panel in LibreELEC - is that possible?

chessplayer · December 15, 2017 at 6:56 PM

Hi everyone,

since my feeble attempts at asking this question in other contexts did not bring about any useful information and owing to kszaq 's mantra that separate threads for separate issues should be used, I open this one. Here is the problem:

I own the following box:

As you can see, there is an LCD panel in front which can show the time and connection status in Android - and which is completely dark in LE. Now, while I do not really need the clock functionality, the power indicator would be really nice to have and maybe some other indicator when the box is in standby.

For boxes that have just an led (blue/red), that works in LE as well and these can be triggered by echoing to whatever you find in /sys/class/leds. Does anyone have a clue whether anything similar is possible for the (elements of) the LCD panel? I believe that being able to access it would be quite an improvement.

**lrusak** · December 15, 2017 at 8:00 PM Official Post

might be able to use the LCDproc add-on if your lcd has a supported driver available.

**kszaq** · December 15, 2017 at 8:48 PM

chessplayer AFAIK GDPR-2 and alex are working on front panel clock support based on pre-built binaries from Amlogic. If they make it work, I can add it. Otherwise I have a box with the clock on the road, delivery due in 1-2 months.

chessplayer · December 15, 2017 at 9:03 PM

Quote from kszaq

... delivery due in 1-2 months.

I hear you .. Just ordered a S905W box for experimentation which I expect to see here in about two months time (triggered by your build for the HDMI handshake, since that was the only problem I had with the one I sent back ...)

GDPR-2 · December 16, 2017 at 5:38 AM

I have it working fully with the prebuilt binary obtained from Oranth by Alex and with some modification to the DTB however there is the source code you pointed me to kszaq for an alternative driver but I haven't managed to make this fully work yet.

GDPR-2 · December 17, 2017 at 7:12 AM

I forgot to mention the box I had it working on was a TX3 Mini, I don't know if that is the same LCD or not, which model is this?

darioml · December 17, 2017 at 8:14 AM

Hi!

I'm also looking for the LCD working in LE I have a Vorke Z6. Will this feature be in the S912 builds as well?

Are you planning to put some settings about it in the LE submenu in Kodi?

Thanks for your work!

BTW, do you need any log for my box? I can provide the dmesg of Android, for example. Could you tell me the name of the driver needed?

Thanks!

Tim_Taylor · December 17, 2017 at 8:26 AM

Quote from darioml

I have a Vorke V6.

I have a Vorke Z6 with lcd display.

You know KISS ?

Keep it simple, stupid

A liitle piece dc-fix - solved.

LCD display = useless gadget

Just my 5 cent

GDPR-2 · December 17, 2017 at 8:32 AM

Quote from darioml

Hi!

I'm also looking for the LCD working in LE I have a Vorke V6. Will this feature be in the S912 builds as well?

Are you planning to put some settings about it in the LE submenu in Kodi?

Thanks for your work!

BTW, do you need any log for my box? I can provide the dmesg of Android, for example. Could you tell me the name of the driver needed?

Thanks!

Display More

I think it will be possible to support this box, logs will not help unfortunately with this issue, physical access to one of the devices on the other hand would, it's somewhat of a headache feature to support as it requires a lot of testing which isn't practical to do remotely.

This is the driver I would like to use, the problem is the DTB, it will have to be custom made for each display which is different which is where the testing issue comes into play, it will be does it display as desired, if not try again, repeat, repeat, repeat.

For the tanix box the manufacturer compiled the LCD driver against kszaq kernel specifically for us and provided us with the modification to the DTB so it didn't require too much work from our end.

chessplayer · December 17, 2017 at 8:35 AM

Quote from adamg

I forgot to mention the box I had it working on was a TX3 Mini, I don't know if that is the same LCD or not, which model is this?

The box in the picture is an ANTSIR D6 (also Dolamee D6) with 1GB/8GB S905X chipset.

Quote from Tim_Taylor

A liitle piece dc-fix - solved.

LCD display = useless gadget

Just my 5 cent

What exactly do you mean by "a little piece dc-fix"? And while I agree that the LCD is not very useful, I did explain my "use case" in the first post ...

Tim_Taylor · December 17, 2017 at 9:15 AM

Quote from chessplayer

What exactly do you mean by "a little piece dc-fix"?

dc-fix is adhesive foil - You can get it in many colours.

I use a little piece black foil, put it on the LCD - that´s it.

I don´t want to look at the "boot" message running LE and I don´t need to show the time running Android.

I don´t want any driver in LE to support this useless gadget - may be there will be some other issues or side effects like hyperion problems ....

GDPR-2 · December 17, 2017 at 10:06 AM

Quote from Tim_Taylor

dc-fix is adhesive foil - You can get it in many colours.

I use a little piece black foil, put it on the LCD - that´s it.

I don´t want to look at the "boot" message running LE and I don´t need to show the time running Android.

I don´t want any driver in LE to support this useless gadget - may be there will be some other issues or side effects like hyperion problems ....

It's not useless when you have a countdown showing you the remaining time left on whatever you are watching

astep · December 17, 2017 at 11:21 AM

Quote from adamg

It's not useless when you have a countdown showing you the remaining time left on whatever you are watching

Yes! That’s what I miss so much after moving to LE box from Dune HD.

darioml · December 18, 2017 at 11:17 AM

Quote from adamg

I think it will be possible to support this box, logs will not help unfortunately with this issue, physical access to one of the devices on the other hand would, it's somewhat of a headache feature to support as it requires a lot of testing which isn't practical to do remotely.

This is the driver I would like to use, the problem is the DTB, it will have to be custom made for each display which is different which is where the testing issue comes into play, it will be does it display as desired, if not try again, repeat, repeat, repeat.

For the tanix box the manufacturer compiled the LCD driver against kszaq kernel specifically for us and provided us with the modification to the DTB so it didn't require too much work from our end.

Hi, adamg.

I'm attaching the Android dmesg from my Vorke Z6. It is seen that the FD628 driver is loaded as an "Out-of-tree module".

Code

[   23.004878@3] Modules linked in: wlan(O+) cfg80211(O) compat(O) aml_fd628(O) ddr_window mali_kbase(O)

I hope it finally works!

I am sure that it would be very useful if it is flexible enough. For example, if you could choose, via a Settings Menu, what to show: the time, the playing time or the remaing one, the movie name, etc. Of course, the LAN, WiFi or Bluetooth symbols to show the current status of those connections are quite useful, as well. Everything would be better than the permanent "boot" message.

Thanks!

Tim_Taylor · December 18, 2017 at 11:40 AM

Quote from darioml

Everything would be better than the permanent "boot" message.

The "boot" message is easy to fix.

Unwanted side effects due to a android driver would be better ?

darioml · December 18, 2017 at 6:12 PM

Quote from Tim_Taylor

The "boot" message is easy to fix.

Unwanted side effects due to a android driver would be better ?

What can be done with the "boot" message? Do you mean the duct tape? I would prefer a nicer solution, thanks...

The driver adamg is referring is a Linux one.

boot2k3 · December 19, 2017 at 8:04 AM

Hi GDPR-2!

I have the S912 box X92 for that this driver was written by anpaza. It works very well in Android.

If you need a testers I would be glad to test it on my system.

I have 3GB device with gigabit Lan.