LCDproc on Mac OS X

I had the opportunity to order some small LCD's (HD44780) at a very fair price, since I already got one in my backup-server i tried to get it working on my docked MacBook running Mac OS X (10.8). Took some time, but in the end I got it working with not too much effort.

Steps I took were:

1. Download LCDproc source from the official website
2. Install libusb from homebrew (brew install libusb)
3. Install libftdi from homebrew (brew install libftdi) <-- this was needed because I used a FT245RL brekout board to connect it.
4. Configure with "./configure --prefix=/usr/local/ --enable-drivers=all --includedir=/usr/local/include/ --enable-libftdi=yes"
5. make -j6
6. sudo make install

Then changed /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf like this: (only changed/added values shown).

[server]

DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/

Driver=hd44780

[hd44780]

ConnectionType=ftdi

ftdi_mode=4

ftdi_line_EN=0x10

ftdi_line_RS=0x20

ftdi_line_RW=0x40

Device=/dev/tty.usbserial-A80048fE

Size=16x2

Of course, you need to have the XCode Command Line tools installed. Also I had the FTDI D2XX driver already installed, the VCP drivers will most likely conflict with libftdi.

You can get them on http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm 

I also got it showing my Growl notifications thanks to http://maclcd.blogspot.nl/