Re: Linux support for a 7 segment LED display

[Lee Jones <lee@kernel.org>]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024, Chris Packham wrote:

> Hi Lee,
> 
> On 20/02/24 04:13, Lee Jones wrote:
> > On Sun, 11 Feb 2024, Chris Packham wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Blinkenlight enthusiasts,
> >>
> >> I'm looking for something that I figured must exists but maybe it's so
> >> niche that no-one has bothered to upstream a driver for it.
> >>
> >> I have a requirement to support a 7-segment LED display[1] (one that can
> >> display a single digit from 0-9). Hardware wise it's just a bunch of
> >> individual GPIOs connected to each segment (plus an extra one for a
> >> dot). I can't see anything obvious in drivers/leds but maybe I'm looking
> >> in the wrong place. Or maybe it's the kind of thing on PC hardware that
> >> is just driven by the BIOS without the operating system knowing about it.
> >>
> >> Is there an existing in-kernel driver for such a thing?
> > Why would LEDs connected to a bunch of GPIOs in a specific fashion
> > require a hardware driver?  Doesn't drivers/leds/leds-gpio.c already
> > provide all the support you need?
> Yes I could expose the individual segments as gpio-ledsbut it would be 
> nicer if they worked in a more co-ordinated fashion so I didn't have to 
> care about the individual segments and could just say "display 7" or 
> "display 0".

Still not sure this sort of thing should be kernel-side.

Sounds more like the role of a library or middle-layer.

-- 
Lee Jones [李琼斯]