I haven't used Vixenlights, but PixelController and PixelPi are both pretty cool, work with WS2801 and LDP8806 LEDs (and could probably be adapted for WS2811) PixelController: https://github.com/neophob/PixelController http://pixelinvaders.ch/?page_id=160 PixelPi: https://github.com/scottjgibson/PixelPi