Datasheet

Userspace Tools
Major updates to Raspbian often break PiTFT support. The PiTFT kernel package doesn’t work across different OS
releases, and it’s a lot of work to prepare a new one.
We’ve experimented with an alternate approach that doesn’t rely on a custom kernel — it instead works in “user
space.” So far it’s worked well regardless of the OS version being used!
There are tradeoffs. The code is still in a rough state with many features yet to be implemented, and also the
performance is slightly less than the kernel approach. It’s typically adequate though, even for game emulation
(RetroPie, etc.), so give it a try if you’ve had trouble with the “classic” approach.
This currently requires a bit of Linux-y knowledge, editing files and such…
Download, Test and Install
PiTFT displays use SPI to communicate, so make sure that’s enabled using the raspi-config utility:
Menu options move around from time to time…at the time of this writing, SPI is under “Interfacing Options.”
Then retrieve the software using wget…
And then a quick test…
The PiTFT should mirror the contents of the Raspberry Pi’s HDMI output at this point. Text and everything will be
microscopic, but we’re just checking that the program runs. If not, confirm that the file /dev/spidev0.0 exists — this
should happen when SPI is enabled. Double-check raspi-config and it never hurts to reboot.
Does it run? Good. Press control+c to kill the program, and we’ll set it up to run automatically on boot.
First, copy the tftcp executable to /usr/local/bin:
Then edit the file /etc/rc.local as root (you can substitute your editor of preference for nano):
Just above the final “exit 0” line, insert the following line:
sudo raspi-config
wget https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_Userspace_PiTFT/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
cd Adafruit_Userspace_PiTFT-master
sudo ./tftcp
sudo cp tftcp /usr/local/bin
sudo nano /etc/rc.local
© Adafruit Industries
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-pitft-28-inch-resistive-touchscreen-display-raspberry-
pi
Page 39 of 70