Portable video monitor for Receptor - maybe...

[thesoundsmith]

here's my latest test - 8.4" video monitor w/touchscreen capability.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid ... WB&cat=MON

Small enough to keep on the emergency road toolkit when I need more info than I can get from the LCD display. If the touchscreen will work, even better, if not, I still get to see what the hell is actually loaded without going through major heartburn.

I have no idea how well this will work, but if it does, it's a winner, and if not, I can probably resell on eBay, this is the cheapest price by $30-40, so I shouldn't lose $$. Should be here by the ed of the week, I'll keep you posted.

[SoftJunkie]

reading my mind again! i'm very interested!

[oGG]

I have one of those. But mine can do 1024x768 and if yours only can do 800x600 as the page says your in for some hacking, since the muse host app is running at 1024x768.

The touchscreen won't work. You need drivers. There are driver avalible for these things (most "cheap" touchscreen TFT's uses the same hardware), but since Muse (still) haven't made their kernel sources avalible you won't be able to compile and install these.

To use it as just a screen it won't be a problem to use thou (except for the resolution thing, see threads below).

See this: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1841251
and this: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1833329

for some more information.


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Olle Gustafsson

[thesoundsmith]

Olle, thanks for that info. I wasn't really expecting to use it for touchscreen though that would be a great addition) but low resolution could definitely be an issue.

For the benefit of those of us who didn't follow the yellow brick road, I have copied and pasted your info here (I would have linked, but I have a question.)


You said:
--------------------------------------------------------------
I have bought a nice little 8" TFT that I'm going to use with my Receptor. The screen I bought (and as almost every small screen TFT) only have a native resolutioin of 800x600 pixels. If you use anything higher that this, the screen performs (good or bad) a downscaling of the image to make it fit. In my case, I actually can use the Receptor at 1024x768 quite well. If you want to use some plugins, which have tiny interfaces, you can run in to problems.

Since the Receptor runs Linux. And X, there's a nifty little feature that's called Virtual screens. I've configured my X server to run at 800x600 (which is my monitors native resolution) but the Virtual screen is 1024z768 (which the Receptors host application runs at). If you do this, you can "pan" the picture but you get no scaling whatsoever of the picture and it should be crystal clear.

Edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config and look for the Subsection "Display" and change it so it looks like below (the bold lines are the ones that differ from the original):

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "800x600" "1024x768"
Virtual 1024 768
EndSubsection

Save the file and restart the Receptor. What about the remote view you wonder? No worry, you won't have to "pan" when running the Receptor remote. This doesn't effect that at all!

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My question - I'm comfortable with RegEdit and Windows Registry editing, but totally ignorant of Linux, and totally unaware of 'X.' What are you talking about? Is this still a RegEdit hack, or are you using a different app/process/etc.? Details, please, if you can...

[oGG]

The file I mentioned is a configuration file for the X server[1] that the muse host application runs on top of. To be able to edit this file you have to access the underlying Linux filesystem.

I've written a small FAQ about the Receptor (how to access the filesystem, among other stuff) which you can find here: http://ogg.kicks-ass.net/receptor/#root_access

Edit: I see now that the information you pasted is from my FAQ, isn't it? (I see the same spelling errors anyway Or have I posted it also? I'm tired... =D)

I don't recommend starting to hack away if you're not comfortable with what you're doing. Ask a friend or something instead. It's very easy to destroy stuff in Linux if you're not used to it. You could end up with an unusable Receptor. Read up on some basic Linux usage before, if, you decide to start hacking.

You'll need some basic knowledge about the filesystem used, editing and saving files etc. on a Linux box. Also if you're going to access the Receptor via SSH you need a SSH client, PuTTY[2] for example, and enable SSH logins on the Receptor (also mentioned in my FAQ).

Disclaimer: I don't want to come off as some sort of über allmighty geek that knows it all, I just don't wanna get blamed for any (if any) misshappenings due to the information I make avalible.

[1] http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/what_is_x
[2] http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgta ... nload.html


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Olle Gustafsson

[thesoundsmith]

Olli, thanks for the info, and the cautionary. I've been an applications programmer for many years (Foxpro, Access, Pascal, etc.) I've just not worked on unix-related gear before. If the information is straightforward (find this registry entry, change it to xx) and involves being able to save the current state before altering, so it's restorable, I'm comfortable with it.

(and yes, I copied that info from your FAQ (and stated so. I always try to attribute my sources...)