ugh. the version of pygame in the Raspberry Pi OS repo is the newer version that uses SDL2, meaning it no longer works with the fbcon driver.

UGH

lemme just rewrite my application to write to a buffer and write my own code to shove it into the framebuffer because WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS

alternatively maybe I just write a framebuffer driver for SDL2 and build my own pygame

@foone SDL2 still has directfb! That should work, right?

@hp nope:
pygame.error: directfb not available

I just don't want to have to launch X11/wayland
this system is already too fucking slow to boot

@foone You probably only need to rebuild SDL2 for raspberry pi OS!

It really is part of SDL2!

https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL2/README-directfb

@hp maybe I should try compiling a simple SDL2 Hello World and seeing if it works

trying to rebuild SDL2 and it is testing for a "Raspberry Pi 0-3 video driver". Interesting. I am running this on a Pi4, I wonder why it only supports Pis 0 through 3. I guess 4 is a different GPU and here's no driver for it yet?

@foone it’s a legacy driver that uses special sauce raspi apis i think

and there's no directfb packages for this version. FUCK

STOP TRYING TO MAKE X11/WAYLAND HAPPEN. THIS IS AN EMBEDDED DEVICE, I JUST NEED TO THROW PIXELS AT AN LCD SCREEN

wait I have it working now and I don't know how. what fucking driver is this using?

ahh, KMSDRM

isn't that the german industrial band or that movie about kpop demons?

@foone Can it use the "kmsdrm" SDL2 video driver? That should be able to draw on screen without X11/Wayland. It's been many years since I used it though, so apologies if this is out-of-date.

@hughcb yep, I just stumbled into that driver!

oh good I have to rotate the screen myself. wonderful

@foone I've seen a PDU with no usb ports, no mouse or keyboard, just a few buttons as input.

Running x11 on like a 128 x 128 monochrome LCD.

@azonenberg @foone that's about the right specification for the original x11 protocol

@azonenberg @foone now if it also used software GL...

I like my GUIs like I like my women: rotated 90 degrees

Now I've got it running the same code on Windows (for development) and the Pi!

Touch input is broken, but I can hack that.

@foone Great, now I have to rotate my monitor to view my floppies...

@cr1901 no need, floppies rotate themselves!

@whitequark @foone lol it was a simple text UI that could have been done on like a cortex-m4 (including the web admin panel). It absolutely did not have to be running Linux.

@azonenberg @whitequark @foone I raise you this elevator display using Linux & Qt (?) to basically display one digit and an arrow

https://www.genemek.com/product/mega7-m7vt/

(Ok, and a COVID safety video below the digit, I'm guessing they failed to sell it as ad space)

@equinox @azonenberg @whitequark @foone The newer JBC modular station controller also run Linux and it boots so. damn. slowly.

Luckily, the controller for the actual soldering parts is independent of the UI and turns on before the UI has even finished booting so you can start soldering before that.

@23n27 @equinox @azonenberg @foone they fucking what

@foone use DisplayPostscript instead 😛

@mmu_man my LCD doesn't speak that

@foone @mmu_man Build a converter.

@deadinside @mmu_man no!

@deadinside @mmu_man this project already has multiple stupid porting elements I have to write (I'm using a VB6 GUI on a ARM linux system!)

@foone @mmu_man Hmm, i wonder if you can fit an OCR component in somewhere...

@deadinside @mmu_man god damn you I've thought about it. this thing might take pictures, and if it takes pictures, of course I want to OCR them