Marlin: Is there any sort of official forum? I’ve been searching all over, but can’t find anything I’d consider “official-ish”. I think I know how to use Google… :S
There’s a wiki at http://marlinfirmware.org. There are forums that are not Marlin-specific at http://forums.reprap.org. If you want to report a bug, you can do that at http://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues (which is also, annoyingly, used like a forum far too often).
Thanks: I’m familiar with the sites you mention… none of which seemed like a ‘forum’ for Marlin (like you said). I figured considering how wide-spread Marlin was, there’d be some sort of ‘gathering place’ for the masses. I’m a recent addition to the mass, so was trying to find where the water cooler was… 
The best “water cooler” option is either the reprap forum or right here.
Yeah, both the marlin code base and organization aren’t very good.
you could always just start one
Ok, here’s a question, since I now deem this thread 'The Official Marlin Forum" 
I’m familiar with version control (mainly Perforce), diff’ing\merging files, etc. The cut of Marlin I got was from a friend, since the printer I built was very similar to his. It seemed… ‘different’ that the current release of Marlin (which I had downloaded as well), and he wasn’t sure how old his was.
When an ‘updated version of Marlin’ comes out, how does one go about rolling those changes into their custom/modified version? Is it sort of expected that you manage this all through Git, using it’s mechanisms?
For some perspective, I’m coming from using Sailfish (on my Rep1/2x), where when a new version would come out you’d just flash your board and be done with it. But since so much custom configuration is required directly in Marlin itself, I was just wondering if there was a preferred\easy way to roll in updates\changes?
My advice is: don’t. The current version of Marlin is a mess, and if you’ve got something a year old that works, stick with it.
If you still want to do it, there are two ways. You could learn to use Git and merge all of the new commits into your local repository, or you could just read through the config file of the new version and change the options that don’t match your old config. You probably can’t just use your old config file with the new version, as the config options may not be quite the same.
Since the current development version has changed tremendously, if you really want to get up to the current official code base, use option number two. Trying to merge will probably have you lose several years of your expected lifetime.
Assuming you and your buddy didn’t make changes outside the config, I would keep your current code as it is, but put the newer Marlin in a new folder and transfer your settings manually to the new code, setting by setting. Keeping your old code base in case something doesn’t work. Keep in mind there is a configuration.h and configuration_adv.h, and that sections got moved around as time went on.
Thanks everybody: Yah, my buddy modified some core stuff to get the lcd screen working, and a few other bits, so it’d be non-trivial to merge all that.
I’m so used to expect software updates in general, it’s odd for me to think I’d just ‘leave the firmware alone’ But since it’s currently working, I suppose it’s best to not poke the bull…
Is it an unusual LCD? There are several LCD panel types supported built-in. The graphic style GLCD is supported but you need to load in an Arduino library to make it work. That’s pretty easy to do now too.
It’s a “repRapDiscount” LCD, which seemed to be supported by the firmware by default. But when both of us hooked ours up… no love, blank screen. So he poked around in some of the cpp, made magical fixes, and that’s what we’re rolling now.
@Eric_Pavey there’s a special define for reprap discount. It’s in there. I know because I use lcd and graphical with Marlin.
My Rumba board came with Marlin installed, and the LCD screen worked.
But I wanted the latest cut (release) of Marlin, so I downloaded it from github, installed it, no lcd. Jump through all the ‘reprapdiscount’ define stuff (like you mentioned), still wouldn’t work.
Did a ton of research, configuring, couldn’t get anything to make it light up. Which is why I adopted my buddies version. When I asked him what he did to make it work it was something like “oh… I don’t remember exactly, but I had to hack the cpp and configure a bunch of pin stuff…”. Scary.
Probably just pins.h
My RRD panels worked fine with Marlin. But some versions of Marlin might have had bugs.
Thanks @Nathan_Walkner : I’d read that and installed the lib as well, but no dice at the time. I’m just happy it’s working at all right now 
If my buddy hadn’t provided me his cut I’m sure I would have been here saying “aaaahhh, what do I do?!?!?!” instead