Looked at this back in 2015. Downloaded version 2023.22 off of their github. There is an old (2019, still 4 years newer than when I last used it) Ubuntu package available, if you don’t want to build from source. Reviewing some of this because it’s been 8 years! Apparently FPP (Falcon Pi Player, but has expanded from the Pi) is a part of this. I didn’t recap this very well in 2015. But from what I can tell from what I wrote, FPP actually controls the light show by using sequence files created by xLights. So the hardware (light controllers) attach to the Pi running FPP and FPP sends the sequence file commands (created by xLights) to the hardware.
Perhaps I should clonezilla first, before I continue? Yes I looked at my clonezilla directory and I only see one Linux Mint 21.2 image and that was from August. And I have 57GB of old images. So I should make one anyway.
In doing a little more research, it may be dangerous to try and install FPP on a regular Linux desktop. Because it thinks it’s customizing a Pi that has been dedicated for this purpose. So things may be removed/changed from your OS that you don’t intend. Sounds like you really should (for best results) run FPP on a Pi using the img file they make available. Burn the img file onto a microSD using balenaEtcher, insert into the Pi, add water, stir then boot. Back in 2015 I stated “Created a Linux Mint VM to use to get xLights working”. But what did I mean? xLights or FPP? I think, without hardware…FPP isn’t even needed. I was just too vague in 2015.
Perhaps a YouTube recap first? Here is 2.5hr tutorial I found (however looking at the index it doesn’t talk about FPP at all)…
There are shorter videos also, perhaps better to get your feet wet with. I remember thinking it was cool 8 years ago, but am sure a lot has changed since then.
In truth, I think I’m too paranoid to put something like this in my yard, because it can get expensive, and some people steal expensive things. And that is probably what would happen to me.
Still I think going through the process would be fun. I could create a light board in my garage and test there. However if it looked cool, I’d be tempted to bring it outside to show it off. Probably most of the expensive stuff could remain in the garage and only the strands of light on a large board would be exposed outside.