lcdproc/INSTALL

-- REALLY-QUICK START --------------------------------------------------

If you're in a desperate hurry type:
./configure --enable-drivers=all
make

And if you start wondering why it doesn't work, come back and read the
rest of the file. 8)

-- PREREQUISITES -----------------------------------------------------

First read the README if you haven't already.

Please take a few minutes to read the user guide located at 
http://lcdproc.sourceforge.net/docs/

For the details on supported platforms, see the PLAFORM SPECIFIC section
of this file.

In order to compile LCDproc, you'll need the following programs:

an ANSI C compiler, we recommend GCC. Most Linux or BSD systems come 
with GCC.

GNU Make. It is available for all major distributions. If you want to
compile it yourself, see http://www.gnu.org/software/make/make.html .

The GNU autotools, that is automake and autoconf. It is available for
all major distributions. If you want to compile it yourself, see
http://sources.redhat.com/automake/ and
http://sources.redhat.com/autoconf/ .

-- DISPLAYS -----------------------------------------------------------

Many different displays (or better said: output devices) are supported.
Some of these devices also support input, for example with a keypad.
There are drivers for input-only devices, too.

For LCDd (the server) to use the device, it needs to load a driver. The
drivers are so called 'shared modules', that usually have an extension
of .so . The drivers to be loaded should be specified in the config file
(by one or more Driver= lines), or on the command line. The command line
should only be used to override things in the config file. The drivers
should be in a directory that is indicated by the DriverPath= line in
the configfile.

Depending on what kind of LCD display that you have, there are several
sources for informations. If your LCD display came with a manual, this
is a great place to start. If you don't have a manual, then you must
find out what kind of display this is, and check the related
informations:

HD44780 and compatible:
  read the HD44780 section in the LCDproc User's Guide (docs/lcdproc-user)
  or alternatively see http://www.robijn.net/lcdproc/
STV5730: http://www.usblcd.de/lcdproc/
SED1520: http://www.usblcd.de/lcdproc/

If you still have problems you could take a look at the comments in the
driver source code in server/drivers/. You may have some good indications
there.

You may want to take a look at LCDproc's hardware page at
http://lcdproc.org/hardware.php3 for details. Several
different types of displays are now supported.


-- BUILDING LCDPROC -------------------------------------------------

--- Preparing a CVS distro ---
If you retrieved these files from the CVS, you will first need to run:
    sh ./autogen.sh

--- Configuration ---
The simplest way of doing it is with:
    ./configure
But it may not do what you want, so please take a few seconds to type:
    ./configure --help
And read the available options, especially --enable-drivers

--- Compilation ---
Run make to build the server and all clients
    make

If you only want to compile the clients, you can omit to compile the 
server:
    cd shared
    make
    cd ../clients
    make

Similarly, if you only want to compile the server, you can omit to 
compile the clients:
    cd shared
    make
    cd ../server
    make

Depending on your system, LCDproc will build in a few seconds to a 
few minutes. It's not very big. 

If you want, you can install it (if you're root) by typing:
    make install

This will install the binaries and the man pages in the directory you
specified in configure.
You may have to copy the configuration file (LCDd.conf) to /etc   
(or /usr/local/etc) manually.

-- PLATFORM SPECIFIC ------------------------------------------------

The lcdproc crew has tried to support a number of platforms. Platforms
that are very non-standard are not and will probably never be supported.
Both server & drivers and clients have their own difficulties in
porting. Here's are the prerequistes for both:

--- Client ---
The client should run on any POSIX compliant system.
It has been sucessfully tested on:
Linux 2.2.x, Linux 2.4.x, NetBSD 1.5, OpenBSD 3.0
In the future, we want it to run on Windows, MacOS and others.

--- Server ---
The server needs to talk to the LCD display. At this time, it works
on very little more than on the Intel i386 (PC Compatible)
architecture. It has been sucessfully tested on:
Linux 2.2.x, Linux 2.4.x, NetBSD 1.5, OpenBSD 3.0

Here are some comments specific to each platform that LCDproc has been
tested on.

--- Linux ---
Nothing special to say, everything should go well.

You may not be able to compile all drivers on something else than i386
if your linux installation does not have ioperm, inb and outb commands.
./configure should leave all drivers that need those functions out   
(drivers for parallel port displays), so that LCDd should compile anyway.

--- NetBSD ---
You need to use GNU Make instead of NetBSD's make. 
Remember to type gmake instead of make to compile LCDproc.
The server will probably only compile on NetBSD/i386.

If you try to run LCDd and you get this error:
Bus error (core dumped)
It is likely that you did not have the right permission to access the ports. 
Try starting the program as root.

--- OpenBSD ---
You need to use GNU Make instead of OpenBSD's make. 
Remember to type gmake instead of make to compile LCDproc.
The server will probably only compile on OpenBSD/i386.

--- FreeBSD ---
It should compile fine on i386.

--- Other platforms ---
If the build process fails, but you do know how to link a loadable
module by hand, you can add the appropriate flags etcetera into
acinclude.m4. Experience required. Please let us know if you got it
working on a previously unsupported system, so we can include it in a
next release.

-- RUNNING LCDPROC -----------------------------------------------------

--- Configuration file ---

The first thing that you need to do is to modify the configuration file
for your server. A example file (LCDd.conf) is available in the tarball.
The comments present in this file should give you indications on what
to do.

--- Starting the server ---

If you're in the LCDproc source directory, and have just built it, run:
    server/LCDd -c path/to/config/file

You can find out what drivers were compiled by running "LCDd -h".  
Note that you cannot use more than one display driver at the same time.

For security reasons, LCDd by default only accepts connections from
localhost (127.0.0.1), it will not accept connections from other computers on
your network / the Internet. You can change this behavior in the 
configuration file.

--- Starting the client(s) ---

Then, you'll need some clients. LCDproc comes with a few, of which the
'lcdproc' client is the main client:
    clients/lcdproc/lcdproc C M T X &

This will run the LCDproc client, with the [C]pu, [M]emory,
[T]ime, and [X]load screens.  The ampersand (&) puts it in the
background.

By default, the client tries to connect to a server located on localhost
and listening to port 13666. To change this, use the -s and -p options.

-- PUTTING LCDPROC IN SYSTEM STARTUP -----------------------------------

It's nice to have LCDproc start when the computer boots, so here's how
to do it:

WARNING: Make sure you have modified the configuration file (/etc/LCDd.conf)
         so that LCDd enters the background mode.
         Otherwise LCDd will lock your system.

Slackware:
	Add lines to your /etc/rc.d/rc.local, such as the following:
	  echo "Starting LCDd..."
	  /usr/local/sbin/LCDd -c /etc/LCDd.conf
	  echo "Starting lcdproc..."
	  /usr/local/bin/lcdproc C M X &

Debian:
      - Copy (as root) the debian init script from the scripts/ direcory of the
	sources to /etc/init.d
	(cp scripts/init-lcdd.debian /etc/init.d/lcdd && \
	 cp scripts/init-lcdproc.debian /etc/init.d/lcdproc)
      - Run (as root): update-rc.d lcdd defaults
	This will create symlinks to start and stop the daemon, resp.
	from /etc/rc[2-5].d/S50lcd to /etc/init.d/lcd, and from
	/etc/rc[016].d/K50lcd to /etc/init.d/lcd.
      - Run (as root): update-rc.d lcdproc defaults
	This will create symlinks to start and stop the lcdproc client, resp.
	from /etc/rc[2-5].d/S50lcdproc to /etc/init.d/lcdproc, and from
	/etc/rc[016].d/K50lcdproc to /etc/init.d/lcdproc.

Redhat / Mandrake:
      - Copy the scripts:
	cp scripts/init-lcdd.rpm /etc/rc.d/init.d/lcdd && \
	cp scripts/init-lcdproc.rpm /etc/rc.d/init.d/lcdproc)
      - enable the scripts with e.g. linuxconf or create the symlinks manually


That's all the OS`s we've actually done this with so far..