I did get my new gear. Monarch Computer had about 5 notices warning me that if I'm being paid to reship my order out of the country, I'm probably helping commit credit card fraud. Seriously, two stickers on the box, a sticker on each of the individual item's box and a flyer on the inside. Interestingly they shipped the m10000 and RAM in a different motherboard's box. It was bigger and they padded the hell out of my stuff, but I was getting all worked up when I saw, "DFI AD77 PRO KT400". No actual problems though.
I installed Debian and flashed the BIOS. I thought of the idea of setting aside a 10mb partition just for BIOS flashing. It should boot Dr-DOS or FreeDOS or something. My first attempt didn't work, so I
asked on the Linux forum here.
I returned the other gear to Fry's. My return clerk inspected everything. He asked me if I had opened the RAM, I said yes, it works fine, I just don't want it. The return clerk looked carefully at the RAM and said, "Are you sure? It looks factory sealed and it would be easier on us if you hadn't opened it". I mubled something about being sure I opened it. He needed to match up some serial number on the actual memory module with a a number on the package and with a number on my reciept. Seems like a reasonable system to protect themselves. It turns out, that on any given item, the "serial number" , can really be any number on the item, even a substring of something stamped on the item. So, my clerk needed help. Rhe supervisor came over and said, "This looks new, he didn't open it, no problem" and walked away. My clerk explained that they don't repackage and resell (for those that have never experienced the joys of Fry's Electronics, they resell returned items for a slightly lower price, yes they mark them as returned) RAM because no one buys it. So, my returned RAM is out there somewhere being sold as new. I'm pretty sure that's no legal. On the other hand, I was careful with it and it works just fine.
Finally, I returned the Powermate and the ShuttleXpress. I had planned on seeing how it worked under Linux, but I think I'd rather have a working system (just and mp3 player for now) installed before getting fancy.
Next, I'm going to copy over my mp3 collection, and try out the various Linux front ends. At first glance PyCar looks to be the best supported. IIRC, it doesn't have a music database, just a file/directory browser. That's no good, maybe I'll write the Python to do it. I like iTunes (and my iPod), I was thinking of just syncing my collection and iTunesDB to my carPC whenever I'm in range of my homre AP. The music browser could just use the iTunesDB, and also update it with playcounts and such. Some thread on here asked for someone to make a clone of the iPod interface for a carPC. The more I think about it, the more I like it. That UI works well, I just want it in my dash. Hmmm.... I wonder how open the PyCar author is to other developers, I need to look.
There's an
EPIA Linux site I need to go through and make sure I'm using all the latest and greatest drivers. I also need to decide on location of my install in the car. I wonder if it'll fit under one of the front seats? Finally, I need to buy the screen and M1-ATX