The things I want in my Linux CarPC...

eurocarpc · 08-21-2009, 08:10 PM

... and are not "standard" in my Ubuntu 9.04 .

These are all small ideas for scripts that shouldn't be more than a few lines in bash, but could be very useful for me.

I'm not talking about any specific distro fixes, these are things you would like to see in any Linux distro for the CarPC.

If anyone reading this codes at least one of them, I'll do another.

1. The screen goes black after 10min. Fixme

2. Filesystem integrity check loaded less often, only if stopped.

3. Small script to de-activate unnecessary services in the CarPC environment, like printing, and anything related to multiuser.

4. No ttys besides the graphical terminal are needed. Maybe one or two, just in case, not more.

5. Is there a program to modify the bootsplash image with the car brand logo?

kev000 · 08-21-2009, 08:44 PM

Have you tried LinuxICE? It covers about everything except #2. Did I mention it's based on 9.04? For #5, take a look at "splashy" in the ubuntu repo. It's even got a UI to create the splash screen from any png. It's pretty cool.

eurocarpc · 08-21-2009, 11:00 PM

I've downloaded the image but I haven't tried it yet.

The thing is, Kev that I would like to stick to a "standard-as-possible" ubuntu distro, and patch it using small scripts. So far, all the projects that I've seen split from the main distro end up failing because they can't keep up with the speed of updating and I wouldn't like to end up in that situation.

I may be wrong. Having an Ubuntu 9.04 base, maybe it is exactly what I need. I'll give it a go as soon as I find a few hours. (It's 4:55 AM over here

)

P.D. : splashy conflicts with ubuntu-desktop and usplash-theme-ubuntu. Should I accept removing those two?

P.D.2 : I wanted to try nGhost; I downloaded the packages but couldn't install it. I'm a computer engineering student. I am not the smartest kid in class, nor a BOFH but... come on! You have to lower the entry barrier for all of these things you are creating and distributing. Make an effort to document and produce good, easy, understandable, step by step howtos! You are doing an excellent job, but if we don't manage to create the critical mass of users around them they won't succeed!

Thanks!

eurocarpc · 08-21-2009, 11:27 PM

I've just run LinuxICE from the Alpha 1.0, in VirtualBox OSE. The install option doesn't show up in the apps->setup menu. In a few minutes, I had to reboot the virtual machine something like three times because the buttons in the lower part of the screen wouldn't do anything. Click on DVD, then DVD again... crash. Click on radio... crash. Navit at least run fine.

kev000 · 08-24-2009, 02:57 PM

why couldn't you install nghost from the package? If you got it from the sf.net page, it won't work with 8.10+. When the linuxice.openice.org server comes back online, i recommend getting your package from there.

for 9.04 you'll want to get a bugfixed version of splashy found in a ppa. After you get the 3rd pary repo, it's pretty easy.

eurocarpc · 08-24-2009, 08:36 PM

Yup, got it from SF. So, what is keeping your server offline?

Would you like me to host some stuff in my Uni. server? It's not very reliable, as we are having some connectivity issues in the last few weeks, but when it's working, it goes pretty fast.

kev000 · 08-25-2009, 06:11 PM

Power supply blew up. It's back up now though. We have a mirror, but when the main server goes down, there's nothing that will redirect you to the mirror :P.

-kev

eurocarpc · 08-28-2009, 09:19 AM

Kev000, could you please tell how does LinuxICE do 1, 3, 4 and 5?

kev000 · 08-28-2009, 12:51 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by eurocarpc

Kev000, could you please tell how does LinuxICE do 1, 3, 4 and 5?

3 is accomplished by the simple fact that LinuxICE was built from the ground up with only the packages that are needed and nothing more.

see http://wiki.openice.org/index.php?title=Linuxice2 for how linuxice is built.

4, In LinuxICE, tty1 actually autologs the user in and .bash-profile starts X. I think the other tty's still exist. (I don't remember actually deleting them). At any rate, other tty's running have no effect on performance of boot or actual running.

5, LinuxICE uses splashy from a bugfix repo. The default package suffers from this bug. I fixed version can be found here.

eurocarpc · 08-28-2009, 03:03 PM

Anything about #1?

I've gone through the scripts to build the image. They don't seem to be too complex. I like that.

I'm actually creating a new image and reading the scripts as it works.

kev000 · 08-28-2009, 06:50 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by eurocarpc

Anything about #1?

I've gone through the scripts to build the image. They don't seem to be too complex. I like that.

I'm actually creating a new image and reading the scripts as it works.

#1, i'm not sure. It's an X11 setting I think. usually a tap on the sreen wakes it up. at least for me it does. LinuxICE doesn't have gnome-power-manager, so it doesn't put the monitor to sleep/turn it off.