pibox-framebuffer

The PiBox's display server. Lightweight Go binary to draw images to the framebuffer

Installation

• Enable SPI using raspi-config -> Interfacing Options -> SPI
• Reboot to enable SPI, sudo reboot now
• Download the latest release
• Set permissions, chmod +x pibox-framebuffer
• Run the binary using ./pibox-framebuffer

Alternatively, install it as a service:

mkdir /opt/kubesail
mv pibox-framebuffer /opt/kubesail/pibox-framebuffer
# Download the .service file from this repo:
curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubesail/pibox-framebuffer/main/pibox-framebuffer.service -o /etc/systemd/system/pibox-framebuffer.service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable pibox-framebuffer

Usage

Drawing an image

curl --unix-socket /var/run/pibox/framebuffer.sock -X POST --data-binary @image.png http://localhost/image

NOTE: Other text and graphics endpoints were supported in old versions, but for the sake of this code's simplicity, we now recommend updating to this version, creating an image using something like the NodeJS Canvas package, and then then flushing it to the screen using the above endpoint. This new version uses SPI and is far more stable than the framebuffer kernel modules, which can inadvertently redirect console output to the LCD.

Installing for development

# Pack an image into the binary for splash screen
go install github.com/rakyll/statik@latest
statik -src=img/pibox-splash.png

# Build the binary
./go-build.sh