LEDSpicer, LED animation controller for Linux.

MeduZaPaT

New Release of LEDSpicer is out, 0.3.9
this version includes:

Improves Pulseaudio plugin render.
New PulseAudio mode "Wave" (check video).
Adds new actor plugin FileReader, this plugin allows the user to create frames on an XML file, right now only RGBA format, more coming soon.
Lot of bug fixes.
Code improvement.

prozach

This is awesome!

How difficult would it be to add support for the howler?

The software was written in C and the source is available on github already.
https://github.com/wolfwaretech/Howler-Arcade-Controller-Firmware

would love to be able to use the controller I have rather than have to buy a new one.

Keep up the good work.

Whoremoan

I'm trying to install LEDSpicer using the latest Retropieimage on a Raspberry Pi.
I am at the part where it says
./configure CXXFLAGS='-s -O3' --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
it goes all the way through it OK but right at the end I get
configure: error: tinyxml2 not found.
Now I can see you need version 6, but I can only get version 4, so I assume that is why I'm getting the error?
I can't figure out how to install version 6.
I've been looking all over the net for a solution for hours and I'm completely stuck.
My knowledge of Linux is pretty basic, so as detailed a response as possible would be much appreciated ;)
TIA

Whoremoan

@Whoremoan
Sorted it with the help of MeduZaPaT.
I'm going to try to repeat what I did on my other Rpi to make sure I can replicate the fix and I'll document it and put it up here in case anyone else has the same issue I had.

Whoremoan

@Whoremoan
OK here is what I did

Install tinyxml2 version 4, which is the newest version available in the repos of the pre-built Retropie v4.5.1 image.
You need this as none of the other versions bellow seem to install the tinyxml2.pc file

sudo apt install libtinyxml2-dev

Now change the tinyxml2.pc file to match the version LEDSpicer is expecting

sudo nano /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/pkgconfig/tinyxml2.pc

Change version to 6.2.0
Ctrl X and save changes

Now download and install version 6a of tinyxml2

wget http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/tinyxml2/libtinyxml2-6a_7.0.0+dfsg-1_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i libtinyxml2-6a_7.0.0+dfsg-1_armhf.deb

This version does not update the tinyxml.h file, so install the version bellow which will install an updated version of this.

git clone https://github.com/leethomason/tinyxml2
cd tinyxml2

Edit Makefile so that the lib files are installed in the directory LEDSpicer expects to see them.

sudo nano Makefile

Change
prefix = /usr/local
To
prefix = /usr

Change
libdir = $(prefix)/lib
To
libdir = $(prefix)/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

Ctrl X and save changes

Now install

make all
sudo make install
cd ..

Finally delete the old version 4 library files and you should be good start the Installing section on the LEDSpicer without errors

sudo rm /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libtinyxml2.so.4
sudo rm /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libtinyxml2.so.4.0.1

It is possible that not all of these steps are needed, but it's the process I went through to get it up and running and it only takes a couple of minutes to do all of this, so you might as well

MeduZaPaT

@Whoremoan this is really good, thanks for the update!

12ale

I am having a problem with the command:

sudo service ledspicerd start

It responds with this error:

Job for ledspicerd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status ledspicerd.service" and "journalctl -xe"

When I view journalctl -xe this is the error I am greeted with:

-- Unit ledspicerd.service has begun starting up.
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie LEDSpicer[9229]: Set interval to 100ms
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie LEDSpicer[9229]: Opening USB session
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie LEDSpicer[9229]: Reading /usr/share/ledspicer/.xml
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie LEDSpicer[9229]: Program terminated by error: Unable to read the file /usr/share/ledspicer/.xml Error=XML_ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND ErrorID=3 (0x3) Line number=0: filename=/usr/share/ledspice
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie systemd[1]: ledspicerd.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie systemd[1]: Failed to start LEDSpicer a LEDs controller and animation daemon that will handle LEDs of different devices..
-- Subject: Unit ledspicerd.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- Unit ledspicerd.service has failed.
--
-- The result is failed.
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie systemd[1]: ledspicerd.service: Unit entered failed state.
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie systemd[1]: ledspicerd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 06 15:26:49 retropie sudo[9157]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Feb 06 15:27:00 retropie sudo[9591]:       pi : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/pi ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/journalctl -xe
Feb 06 15:27:00 retropie sudo[9591]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by pi(uid=0)

It looks like I am missing the file with this directory

/usr/share/ledspicer/.xml

Thanks in advance.

Whoremoan

@12ale

Have you tried running ledspicerd -d
This should tell you if any of the .xml files are missing or if there is an error in the .xml files.

MeduZaPaT

@12ale you need to set the ledspicer.conf file, that error is maybe the missing colors file.
you can check the logs also like this:

cat /var/log/syslog | grep ledspicer

Use sudo if you get access denied.

12ale

@Whoremoan @MeduZaPaT

Part of the issue was the missing color files.
I still get this:

Job for ledspicerd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status ledspicerd.service" and "journalctl -xe"

When I run ledspicerd -d I get this message:

Program terminated by error: Missing attribute 'port' inside root

Thanks for the help.

12ale

@12ale said in LEDSpicer, LED animation controller for Linux.:

@Whoremoan @MeduZaPaT

Part of the issue was the missing color files.
I still get this:
Job for ledspicerd.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status ledspicerd.service" and "journalctl -xe"
When I run ledspicerd -d I get this message:
Program terminated by error: Missing attribute 'port' inside root
Thanks for the help.

Disregard the previous post. I was able to get everything to work.
Thank you for the help.

SigmaX

I was kind of giving up hope I would get my Howler working on my Pi3. Is there a retro pi image that I can download that will have everything set up? I'm really new to all of this, and I'm also dyslexic so the amount of reading I have to do is pretty daunting.

I'd love to find an image I can just put on my SD card and start going.

MeduZaPaT

@SigmaX what OS are you running in the Pi3 ?