Linux support - LG devices - and open source

[SWAT]

Good morning everyone,

I've recently received my Skip 1s and Flirc USB and have some ideas/suggestions/questions. For that to make sense, I'll need to write a bit about how I came to make this post.

Background story
I found out about the Skip 1s online and think it looks amazing, the Flirc USB also looks great and the feature set of both devices good (especially since it has Linux support, which is a killer feature for me, as a daily Linux user). The Harmony remote of a "friend" broke and I want to replace it, to make his/her life a lot simpler. So I went and ordered these devices and attempted to configure the Skip 1s (the Flirc USB was more a fallback option, but since I'm a techie, I wanted to check it out as well).

Skip 1s app
So I downloaded the Skip 1s app (manual Linux version, NOT the repository version). And here I was confronted with a couple of issues on my Ubuntu 23.04 system:

• installation instructions ( https://flirc.com/ubuntu-software-installation-guide )
  • they include an outdated dependency list (but that won't stop me, although I hoped the qt5 dependencies would not bite me, since qt6 is the default nowadays)
  • it mentions a file ( 99-flirc.rules ) which I eventually found the content of on this page ( https://flirc.gitbooks.io/flirc-instructions/content/linux.html ). A manual chown and chmod could do the trick as well (without udev rules in place) as a temporary workaround (did not want to fiddle with udev for now).
• running the GUI app
  • it seems to have a ldd
  • it shows a GUI, but keeps throwing errors about flirc_driver.c:
    user@host:~$ ./Flirc
    [E] lib/libflirc/flirc_driver.c fl_minor_version(498): something bad happened
    [W] gui/Flirc/src/main.cpp log_setup(131): flirc.ini not in the default location[E] lib/libflirc/flirc_driver.c fl_major_version(508): something bad happened
    [E] lib/libflirc/flirc_driver.c fl_minor_version(498): something bad happened
    [E] lib/libflirc/flirc_driver.c fl_patch_version(558): something bad happened
    [E] lib/libflirc/flirc_driver.c fl_major_version(508): something bad happened
  • That probably explains why the GUI always states it is "disconnected"
  • Going to File -> Advanced opens a new windows which is empty (all grey)
• running the flirc_util
  • it seems to have a hard dependency on libreadline.so.7 which has been superseded by libreadline.so.8 (on my system at least). That can be worked around by creating a symlink in /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  • running flirc_util unfortunately always gives me the same output:
    user@host:~$ ./flirc_util device_log
    device disconnected, can't run command
  • So I thought to manually compile flirc_util ( https://github.com/flirc/sdk ), but after compiling and running the binary, it gave me the same issue.
• checking out the configuration bits (trying to get a feel for it)
  • I noticed my devices are not in the database. TV: LG OLED55C21LA and soundbar: LG S90QY(26)
  • and there is no clear way to add them. I did read this forum topic:
  • I don't mind manually creating and submitting json files for those remotes, but there does not seem to be a clear way to do just that.

Ideas / suggestions / questions
So I have several ideas / suggestions / questions, based on the experience above:

• create a link on the installation page to the udev rules
• update the dependencies and fix the GUI and cli apps
• provide instructions on how to create and submit json files. Especially the bit on how to get the IR codes (can't figure how to do that with the Flirc USB)
• provide a LICENSE on all source code ( https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository ). Personally I strongly prefer the GPLv3 ( https://choosealicense.com/licenses/gpl-3.0/ ). I  notice that (for me personally) it motivates me to work / help an open source project, since the license means it is future proof and my own work will always be available and improved upon.
• perhaps (depending on your goals), provide the source code of everything ;-)
• use a simple wiki for documentation
  • you can use a per repo wiki (there's a tab in github for that, easy and done in a few clicks: https://docs.github.com/en/communities/documenting-your-project-with-wikis/adding-or-editing-wiki-pages )
  • or use something like Github Pages ( https://pages.github.com/ )

 

Apologies for creating a single forum topic with several topics in them, but it is all very intertwined. Just trying to help out here :-)