Linux 5.11 Adding New Driver For Another Budget-Friendly, LCD Character Display

Adding to the Linux 5.11 changes and set of new drivers is "lcd2s" as a driver for supporting a 20x4 LCD character display connected via SPI/I2C and with this support can serve as a kernel console output device.

The LCD2S driver is for supporting the Modtronix LCD2S character display. This is a single-color, 20x4 serial LCD display that can interface with the system via SPI/I2C.

With the 400+ lines of code that makes up the LCD2S Auxdisplay driver, this character display can serve as a console output device. The Modtronix display retails for about $30 USD.

This new driver was sent in as part of the Auxdisplay changes for this next kernel cycle. Modtronix offers a data sheet on this serial LCD display as well as example C code for interfacing with the device from user-space, so the Linux driver bring-up wasn't all that challenging but now allows the device to serve as a console output. More details on the display at Modtronix.com.