Custom carpc distro - Page 3

sama · 12-06-2006, 03:23 PM

if anyone would like to have a go at running Velocity on a linux distro, I have something they can try... it's very early stages, but it does work.

reborg · 12-07-2006, 06:54 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by nasa

Do GSM phones exist in the US?

Yes, not widely used, but they do exist.

reborg · 12-07-2006, 07:08 PM

Sama,

I'll give it a whirl if you like, won't be in-car, but that shouldn't matter. Shoot me a pm if you're interested.

monkeyBox · 12-11-2006, 12:21 AM

Sorry, all -- I've been on hiatus for quite awhile. Work has been killing me lately, thus my ability to get anything going has been limited. It's great to see that so many people are interested in getting this project going. Since I'm not able to devote much time at the moment to get things started, I'll lay down some initial groundwork for what needs to be done.

** Note: Anyone wishing to contribute to this project, I suggest you poke around at linpvr.org and get a good idea of how minimyth works, as this is what we'll be forking the project from.

1. We need a home for the project. If anyone out there has some public web space that they're willing to share, it would be much appreciated. I've gone ahead and purchased linuxcar.org (for lack of a better name) for the domain name. At the very least, we could just start a page in the mp3car.com wiki

2. For SVN, I'm considering using opensvn.csie.org. I've set up a project there, and I'll be loading the MiniMyth source in there soon, so that we can use it as a starting point.

3. Once I get the SVN repository started, we can have people start to play around with getting some requirements built in using the gAR build system. Without knowing what frontend we'll be using, here's some initial base requirements that I know we'll need on top of what minimyth already has:

Touchscreen drivers/support
Bluetooth support
GPSD?
???

We can start by adding some basic things in there and see if we can get our own system built using the same GAR build system that the MiniMyth project uses.

4. The frontend is, of course, a big priority. Ideally, though, our system should be flexible enough to support different frontends. So my challenge to you is to try to build your favorite frontend into the system and note your challenges along the way.

5. My biggest priority, personally, is GPS navigation. I feel that this will also be the biggest challenge, as good choices for GPS software for linux seem limited. Right now it seems that GPSDrive is the most actively developed GPS application for linux, though the interface is a bit clunky. Although, I hear that they may be building some major improvements in the coming months.

6. Please start posting your ideas of what you see as most important in a CarPC system, and all the "bells and whistles" you'd like to see. I think this list is a great starting point: http://www.mp3car.com/wiki/index.php...ystem_Features

sama · 12-11-2006, 05:53 AM

Regarding GPS, I have been in touch with the co-author of FreeDrive, and the next version that is currently being worked on, will sport a network protocol (to make it compatible with Velocity). That means, that with some tinkering, FreeDrive 2 could potentially run within Wine on Linux. And if the performance/compatibility is good, and Wine can be made to run borderless and on-top (not essential but very nice to have), then we have Destinator 6 on Linux!

Another note is that mplayer, supports TV and Radio cards (specific ones) and this speed things up.

nasa · 12-11-2006, 07:57 AM

Hi again,

along the GPS discussion -- I have gotten iguidance to load and run under crossover. It doesn't have a gps antenna hooked up yet, so I can't say how well it will work in the *real* world. But at least there is some hope.

Nasa

arjveld · 12-11-2006, 11:39 AM

Hey all,

For speeding up the boot sequence isn't is possible to use via's fastboot? It's available for linux. Don't know if it depend's on something specific (used bootloader or anything), but i can check it. That way it's not mandatory to use it, but there's no way to go thru the entire first initiliasation. For all the other parts, i've got an epia MII motherboard, so i'm willing to do all kind of testing if needed. Shall see if i can help anywhere.

Ps. sorry for my bad english. It's not my native language

sama · 12-11-2006, 12:28 PM

this link may help

silvercryst · 12-11-2006, 12:36 PM

I have joined the Roadmap project group, and there seems to be a lot of activity regarding directions. I'll let you know more when I have more info.

kev000 · 12-12-2006, 12:28 PM

I have some server space if you are willing to have a subdomain (ie "linuxcar.myserverdomain.com"). I can put on there a forum, wiki, and mailinglist for the project. give me the okay and consider it done. It's a great project and I need to get more use out of my server.

djpyro · 12-12-2006, 01:23 PM

hey monkeybox id be interested in helping in anyway i can test it and help with suggestions and anything btw i think the "monkeybox" logo is the logo you have of "monkey" from dexters lab

bpierce815 · 12-19-2006, 02:11 PM

Currently, There are 2 projects that look interesting for US Navigation. RoadNav and RoadMap. Both of these work off of US Census Data so would be useless to those outside of the US. However, I know that there was a version of Navigator4 for linux that included Europe maps. If someone could find a copy of that, maybe hooks into that program, if it has been purchased and installed by the user, could be an option?

bpierce815 · 12-19-2006, 02:14 PM

I have an EPIA system that I can test with. Something I would like to be able to do is load this onto a CF Card or USB flash and boot to RAMfs. You can already do this with Minimyth so I doubt that this would be a problem.

mccdeuce · 12-21-2006, 02:10 PM

i have been watching your thread for a bit (as well as many other threads which we all do) these are my thoughts.

Streetdeck, RoadRunner, AMP, pyCar..... are all good programs they meet the needs of their users.

All of them have one fundamental problem in my mind. They are all FrontEnds - they all run on some other code set.

My friends love my CarPC (running on an epia with RR) and a couple have though about starting their own solutions. For them I reccomend a TomTom. When I look at the new TomTom it cost 600 bucks has a 20 gig hd supports bluetooth phones and can play mp3's.

But my carPc is modular and i can do a whole lot more - but will always be inferior to a TomTom or any other device in its ability to load the system.

Why do people buy linksys routers, or a slingbox when a small linux pc can do the same thing - dedicated systems.

What we need for this community is a simple, professional looking, operating software.

I would base this software on a linux kernel but it needs to be just that (I think that this is similar to your plan)

RoadRunner is somewhat similar to how linux but in the sense that it is a FrontEnd. A few people started it and other continually add to it. It is a great system but would be inferior to a CarPC operating system.

So this has rambled way too much but what we need is a unix or BSD or linux kernel based operating system. (doesnt necessarily have to be freeware) Essentially build a Windows for the CarPC.

If this is your plan I would like to help in anyway that I can. My linux programming skills are small I use mainly macs but I do program some stuff that is cross platform.

kev000 · 12-23-2006, 05:03 PM

For the past couple days I've been messing around with minimyth. I started the build for version 0.20-20 but it failed. Possibly something wrong with the build system as it couldn't fine the file "file-4.17.tar.bz" on their server. I'm currently in the process of building the 0.19-20 version. I'll let you know how it goes. I hope to see this project go up on SVN.

Here is what I've noted so far:

Minimyth already has mysql setup and running
It also uses mplayer's latest 1.0RC1 that is patched up with the openchrome stuff
xorg with the openchrome driver

All this works for a pretty sweet setup and should be pretty powerful. I don't think it will take much to get nghost up and running on it. I'll try to keep you updated with any success/failures that I have.

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