This is the script that outputs system status on a sh1106 (not ssd1306) OLED. It's tailored to my needs so you will probably want to modify it a little bit.

1. Enable i2c interface on your raspberry pi.
2. Check that your oled is connected using i2cdetect -y 1. The correct output is:

     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:                         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3c -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

3. Follow this guide to install luma.oled. Make sure puthon3 is installed. https://luma-oled.readthedocs.io/en/latest/software.html

In the repo folder, run: python3 status.py

1. Create a new service file: sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/oled.service
2. Paste this into it:

[Unit]
Description = SH1106 status OLED.
After = network.target

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/full/path/to/repo/oled_sh1106_status
ExecStart = python3 status.py

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

3. sudo systemctl daemon-reload
4. sudo systemctl enable oled.service
5. sudo systemctl start oled.service

If you make any changes to the service file, run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl stop oled.service

If you want to stop the service:

sudo systemctl stop oled.service

You can send custom status messages from anywhere in the os. You can add a new message by running

python3 up.py add Your Message

After that, it will be displayed on the oled. To remove it, run

python3 up.py remove Your Message

You can use this feature to track background tasks. For example:

python3 /full/path/to/repo/oled_sh1106_status add Backup Job ; your_backup_command ; python3 /full/path/to/repo/oled_sh1106_status remove Backup Job

To make it shorter, you can create a symlink:

sudo ln -sf ~/feats/oled_sh1106_status/up.py /srv/oled/up.py