ArchLinux CarPC with XBMC-Frontend

Hello,
a friend and me started a carpc-project some time ago which is still up&running :) We tried a new approach using a medie-center as software frontend and customized an existing theme to also serve touchscreen gestures. XBMC (http://www.xbmc.org) already has strong media playback capabilities, so our focus is now on extending it with several different features such as hands-free software, navigation system and advanced interface features for configuring WiFi- and Bluetooth-devices.
The main advantage in using this kind of Linux-setup is, that free software is extremely configurable and extendable. Furthermore our software is really fast and good documented, have a look ;)

Link: http://www.project-insanity.org/2011...xbmc-frontend/ Unfortunately the documentation is in German but it might be useful (even with Google Translate?!).

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/9710/imag0482no.jpg

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/2...81366x768s.png

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/359...01366x768s.png

Any kind of feedback appreciated :)
Greets
- oNNy

I'm running the same thing. ArchLinux on a small htpc with nvidia ion and XBMC as frontend!! :)

I'm interested in that skin you use. Right now, I'm using DJ Toll's Skin (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=84175) which is no too bad.
I bookmarked the link. I will gladly read it this week :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bobbykipper

I'm running the same thing. ArchLinux on a small htpc with nvidia ion and XBMC as frontend!! :)

I'm interested in that skin you use. Right now, I'm using DJ Toll's Skin (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=84175) which is no too bad.
I bookmarked the link. I will gladly read it this week :)

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might end up with the same thing

Ubuntu / FreeBSD are my other OS choices
using ZFS ( data rot protection ) with 4x SSD Drives to hold some of my music I couldn't believe my Anime OST collection was over 1tb .. and that's not including my English music collection !!

but it looks like XBMC .. will have to do as a front end for me at least i know how to make its skins and load other applications through it

not much out their linux wise that works to many dropped projects and XBMC is becoming my home media server so why not the car as well :P

Linux and XBMC is a nice combo... I am doing a similar setup (using bodhi linux as my OS). I have my system on a 128G SSD and am moving my audio to a 256G SSD and some flash drives (SSD is too small). So far my spacenavigator seems like it will be a suitable controller for XBMC - negating the need for a touchscreen friendly skin.

I've been running XBMC as my HTPC system for a few years now and as my carpc for 2 years. I'm surprised there aren't more people doing this and I keep expecting integrated navit, handsfree calling, and voice recognition apps popping up. It runs on every OS and the music playback has a great 10' interface although I would love to see a theme with a better driving interface. Haven't found an easy way to rate songs while driving. I'm currently running it on an old G4 iBook but have had a linux based atom machine in the works for about a year, just haven't had the time to get it set up just right. On the mac I used 2 Griffin powermates as well as a touch screen for control and will be integrating steering wheel controls in my next build. I also would love to replace my screen with a capacitive touch, I'm looking at having a custom built controller made for a 7" tablet 'replacement' screen. If it works then it would be cheaper than the one I'm using now. With XBMC and some clever applescripts to integrate handsfree, navigation and voice control I have a pretty decent setup but I'm going to lose some of that switching to linux. I would love to see carpc guru's go nuts on some XBMC plugins. My biggest issue now is getting the powermates to play nicely with linux the way I want them to and to find some sort of handsfree integration for XBMC. I would love to keep this thread going with ideas/solutions for control, handsfree and voice control. Currently I'm using unity to switch between navit and XBMC but I would love to see navit integrated into XBMC and get rid of unity altogether, or only load it up when I need to administer things. While I'm dreaming, I would like an interface for HD radio and a radar detector and maybe instead of navit, something more like Waze, ooh and a remote car start option, maybe garage door opener and a ODBC interface for my Kiwi device both for tweaking the engine and showing boost gauge etc. Okay, I'm done I think. Any developers wanna jump on this?

prestain,

I am totally with you on this. I alot of the things you want, I have been after (just haven't had the time to work it). I use a spacenavigator to interface with XBMC (yes, in linux) and now have a fusion brain volume control setup and running (Thanks, Nick!) - which gives me even more options on controlling my setup. I also run navit (sounds like you got it running under Mac), just having a button mapped to alt-tab between it and XBMC. Otherwise, I am at a similar place as you -- just need more time to work on it...

Nice to see some people still making linux work for them. As much as I love linux I'm afraid I'm going to have to install winbloze on my truckpc. Or perhaps I'll dual boot and see how much I really need windows.

The only thing I know is some OBD tuning software I'd like to run is windows only. And a few RTS games I'd like to play if I'm sitting in the truck doing nothing... I'm sure I'll come up with a few other things I still need m$ for as I think about it.

I've been running ubuntu UNR (netbook remix) since it came out and it works pretty well. I use Exaile for my music player because of the ease of use. Playlists (random 500, 5 stars...), artists, albums or songs are easy to drag and drop into the playlist window. I tried using xbmc and moovida and a few others but this has worked the best for me. I could never figure out an easy way to handle my music collection with xbmc. Maybe I'm missing something simple?