Dashboard Linux

zebziggle writes "The dashPC has Global Positioning (GPS) and Navigation, DVDs, Games (Quake 3, SoF, UT), Address book database, etc. It can run any programs that will run on an Intel/AMD i686 class computer. There is a Basic Stamp micro-controller that interfaces the Linux box to the car ignition for controlled boot/shutdown." The article says Linux, but that screenshot tells a different story. The website has other stuff and a lot more pictures.

Comments

what's better?

[blugecko]

Now when I get hit on my bike again by a car, instead of the old "i was on my cell" they will "i was in the middle of recompiling my kernel..." to the officer

Re:what's better?

[Jburkholder]

More like "I was installing a service pack" from the looks of the screenshot?

Re:what's better?

[Jerf]

Don't forget to use "nice" while recompiling the kernel, or your ABS braking and power steering will get really laggy, which can cause fatal "oops"es.

Jetta Coupe?

[Julius X]

In addition the the screenshots that look a whole lot like Windows to me....I noticed that on the features page it shows a car which isn't even available in the US (yet the car has Florida Plates)---the Jetta 2 Door!

Something about this site seems awfully fishy.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actualy if you look at the screen shots of the car on dashpc it is a 4 door car.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[AtomicSushi]

The Jetta 2 door is indeed available
in the US...or was. I wasn't very popular, so VW dropped it when the did the JettaIII.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8783/coupehis to ry.html

That car, however, IS a sedan.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Milican]

The listed software includes VMware. So it looks like your windows theories are true, but only by emulation.

JOhn

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Scutter]

I wasn't very popular,

Maybe it's your cologne. ;)

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.. You should read before opening your mouth. He is running win98 under vmware for some of the software (just gps according to the page).

Also can clearly see the front door handle in one of the pictures with the back door open.

The only thing that make this site fishy is that your head is buried in silt.

This site and the information is one of the best uses for linux on pc equipment. I saw it a while back and is an arguement that if done right linux can be very user friendly.

Overall this is a great hack.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Buran]

The Jetta coupe does exist as a concept only but isn't going to get built for the 4th generation A platform vehicles.

The photo on the "features" page is a modified form of a photograph of that VW concept car . It was painted a lovely blue we don't get here in the US -- Jazz Blue. (A few Jazz Blue Golfs did make it as close as Canada, though. And you can get the color -- renamed -- on the Audi S4.)

I can't seem to find a valid URL for the original photo at the moment, unfortunately.

Jetta coupes existed for the first- and second-generation models only. They might come back for Generation 5, though. Who knows?

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[milkmandan9]

Coupe? I can clearly see a rear door in the "pictures" section of the webpage (3rd row, 3rd pic over).

They could be using two cars...but even in that case, at least one of them is a sedan.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[vax]

If i had one of these in my car, i have a hard time beliving i would actually drive anywhere.. who needs a apartment when you have your server in your car = ) all i would add is 802.11 and a cup holder.. (god knows it probly is the only thing is doesnt come with) hehe, yea go out and by a Gremlin and put one of these in it.. talk about spending more on the system than the car = ) heh. i would get one but i bet my insurance would go up right? I can see it now "well sir it appears since you have FreeBSD running on your dashboard we are going to have to charge you an extra 50 dollars a month in insurance due to "stability" issues".. but hey at least it would be crashing when you were in the middle of rush hour.. i can see it now 10 year old hacker arrested for causing 1000 BSODs during rush hour, imagine the clean up on that wreak.
just my 2 cents
VAX

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Keith Russell]

Volkswagen officially called it the Coupe Study CJ. And I think that's the color Audi calls Nogaro Blue.

</karmawhore>

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was referring to the modern one from 2000+ not the Jettas one-three.

Sigh.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Julius X]

You should pay attention to whom you call an idiot.

I did read the whole site, dumbass. The site claims that VMware was used only for GPS equipment for Win98, yet the desktop shows Windoze clearly being used for other purposes as well...including Winamp/MP3 playing.

WIth all that work on WIndows, it makes you wonder why he even installed windows.

As for the Jetta Coupe ordeal, the PICTURES clearly show a sedan, but the features with the "beauty" shots clearly shows a Coupe....with him trying to show how nice a car he has, you'd figure he'd actually show HIS car! (Notice he never takes any pictures of the exterior of his own car--lowered suspension my ass.)

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[bergeron76]

To clarify:

The original version of the "dashpc" ran Windows (as pictured in the parallaxinc website). That was about 2 years ago. It now runs linux.

The "features" picture was just a picture of a Jetta that I found on the internet. I didn't feel like "rolling my own picture of a Jetta" when there are plenty on the web. I didn't note the 2 door until after it had been added to the site. 99.9% of people don't "attack" the nonsensical details as you do.

I haven't taken any pictures of the "exterior" of the car because that hasn't been my focus. The car is Volkswagen Jetta. Big deal. They are all over the place. My focus is on the dashpc, which resides on the..... interior. I will add a picture of the exterior of the car so that I can prove "beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt" that the car is indeed: A Jetta. Woo! Hopefully, you'll be able to get some sleep finally. It appears you've lost a lot of it due to these details...

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[bergeron76]

You sir are absolutely correct! I did have to remove the cupholder to put in the LCD screen. If only I could've had 1 more vertical inch they could have happily coexisted (however, the cupholder would be above the LCD which would have me worried 24-7.

Keen eye...!

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[Julius X]

LOL. People make way too big a deal about this stuff. Slashdot is about conversation....and I'd say many more people around here pick up much stupider details than I would ever consider. So lay off dude.

I haven't lost any sleep, other than what I normally lose due to a bad work schedule. I really could care less about how your car actually looks. If it was a two-door, then I would say cool...that's all. Chill.

Re:Jetta Coupe?

[vax]

heh i got my first no -1 post perhaps i should go drill a cupholder now..
= )
VAX

Beowulf?

[czardonic]

Imagine a ten car pile-up of these!

Re:Beowulf?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would MOD you to +5 Funny Heaven if I could.

Re:Beowulf?

[BamaRob]

Someone mod this up. That is FUNNY!

Re:Beowulf?

[Bobby Orr]

is that what the network neighborhood icon is for?

Wow, a dashboard linux box running windows, amazin

[dafoomie]

Is it possible that the screenshot is *gasp* fake? Or that they ran Windows on that particular one? You know, if you advertise it as one thing, your evidence should corroborate you.

Frame style?

[JThaddeus]

Are you sure he didnt just pick a Windoz look-alike frame style? His site says Red Hat Linux 7.1

Re:Frame style?

[nuintari]

One screenshot has Hollywood Magic Plus DVD software in it, its windows software, and they claim VMWare, but I seriously doubt DVD playing works all that well through a virtual machine. VMWare struggles to make office seem peppy on all but the newest machines.

Re:Frame style?

[lukekb]

ummm... Hollywood Magic Plus is hardware card... it does all the decoding in hardware not software... its not going to put any real strain the CPU. nice try

Re:Frame style?

[gol64738]

you haven't checked out vmware 3.0 yet. it screams faster than win4lin, plus hardware support. woohoo!

Re:Frame style?

[nuintari]

yes, I own the card. the software used with the card is what they are running, and I seriously doubt that you can play dvd's in hardware or software over vmware.

Stuck at a green light.

[TechnoLust]

I can people to get out of my way when the light turns green now. I can just imagine if they start a game of Quake everytime they get stuck at a red light. I'm about as wired as you can get, but even I draw the line at that.

On the other hand, for kids in the back seat with head phones, maybe quiet trips will make a comeback.

Driver distractions

[Lewisham]

Do drivers really need any more distractions? They're supposed to be watching the road, rather than whomping through pedestrians. Why the hell would you want to play UT in the car? Frag a few people at the traffic lights? The real kicker is that it doesn't actually run when the engine is off. Hooray!
However, the rather pointless walnut styling on the keyboard really sells the thing to me :)

Re:Driver distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume this is more for the passengers, since there are LCDs in the back of the headrests.

Re:Driver distractions

[bhsx]

He very clearly states that it's there for his passengers. He does not use it while driving. It's more of a toy to show off to friends/co-workers. He's been working on this a long time, I'm suprised he hasn't been /.ed earlier. Kudos and Hoorah, I know I'm inspired. :)

Re:Driver distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

In true Slashdot fashion, he had been Slashdotted before. I can't seem to find the article, but I remember seeing this on Slashdot a couple of times. Might have been in the comments though, but it has been mentioned here before.

Re:Driver distractions

[Russ Steffen]

I SO want to play Grand Theft Auto 3 when I'm driving...

Re:Driver distractions

[GigsVT]

Formule for responding to any article that even hints that the device is portable and could possibly be used in a car:

Do drivers really need any more distractions? They're supposed to be watching the road not ________. Why the hell would you want to ______ in a car anyway? The real kicker is that _________

:)

No offense Lewisham, you were just the last straw in a rant that's been building up for a while.

Re:Driver distractions

[S5o]

There are always naysayers whenever Linux achieves something good. I say Linux needs MORE driver support, regardless of the consequences. If it takes a few dented bumpers to get a SANE interface to my Scanjet, well, dems the breaks.

Re:Driver distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

huh huh, he said "iso"...

Re:Driver distractions

[Lewisham]

Hah, you're right :) But "inventors", "innovators", "crazies" or however they wish to call themselves keep making this stuff, and it is just a matter of time before someone gets battered. And, in the UK at least, even if you were caught using it, you'd still get less time in the chokey than manslaughter (don't know how they say it in the US: killing without premeditation), despite the fact it amounts to the same thing.

Anyway, who said there was anything bad with identikit responses? ;)

Re:Driver distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree! My drivers are distracted enough! Between having to check the kernel and memory and hardware continuously, my drivers don't get nearly the attention they deserve. Luckily, I can remove my unwanted drivers from memory when I need to...!

Re:Driver distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add to how idiotic you've demonstrated yourself to be, that keyboard appears to be covered in burlwood; not pecan or walnut or whatever your pea-brain said (above)...

Re:Driver distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

[USA]: killing without premeditation==manslaughter

0o0ps, did _I_ do that?

The Next Step

[Talisman]

What with all the automobile modifications for running computers, the next logical step is to simply replace the windshield with a monitor.

Cameras mounted on the front of the car would provide the driver with images from the road. The rest of the 'screen' could be divided into whatever the user(s) would like.

Say the passenger wants to play Quake, he opens a window and plays it on the right side, while the screen in the middle plays The Lion King for the kids in the back.

This would also allow stronger bodies on cars, as the composite used in place of windows would be far stronger than glass.

Talisman

Re:The Next Step

[Lewisham]

On the idiot box I saw something like this, where a small HUD was projected to the corner of the windscreen, which screened thermal imagery to the driver to be used in conditions of poor visibility. Worryingly, I would doubt it took long for some fool to post on the Internet how to turn it into a DVD player, causing people everywhere to crash their cars at the nail-biting final scene...
I think a full on windscreen display would be a bit OTT. By the time that comes viable, the cars will be flying themselves :)

Re:The Next Step

[defMan]

Exactly how many trust do you have in technology. I love the idea but if some circuitry failed i'd like it to be returned to normal see-trough glass automatically.
You don't wanna see your binary-only nvidia driver blow up on you when driving (or X for that matter).

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you smoking crack?

Re:The Next Step

[Wells2k]

So what happens when the vehicle loses power while driving?

I can see it now. The monitors go blank, you can't see a thing out the window, and you are driving down the Interstate at 85 miles an hour. What do you do? Crash, that's what.

Also, I can imagine that people who suffer from claustrophobia would have a hard time in a vehicle such as this, no matter if they are seeing the outside through a virtual method.

I guess I just do not see the use of virtual monitors in vehicles happening for some time to come. Glass is cheap, and can be strengthened to provide quite a bit of protection.

Re:The Next Step

[Talisman]

Have a glass window embedded in the composite for just such an emergency. Like tanks have the vision slits.

Re:The Next Step

[Mr. Sketch]

Cool idea. I've often thought of something similar for a car, but I've since thought that a Heads Up Display would be better suited for the purpose of displaying video on the windshield. Everything you mentioned could easily be done with a heads up display, and I think it would also end up looking cooler and being safer.

(Actually my idea I had was about 7 years ago, while I was a major trekkie, was for a car that looked like and worked like a ST:TNG shuttlecraft. I had blueprints and everything, but somewhere along the lines I grew up :) ).

Re:The Next Step

[brer_rabbit]

And after that, the next obvious thing is to replace the mouse with the steering wheel. And wire up the gear shifter as a joystick.

It's all fun and games until someone *thinks* they're playing Carmageddon but they're really driving around the Target parking lot at 80 mph...

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

Vision slits are about as practical as homer simpson "speed holes".

Re:The Next Step

[milkmandan9]

Besides the obvious safety considerations (what happens if the monitor dies or if a nicely-sized rock manages to punch a hole straight through the camera lens?), there are many advantages to having nothing besides a piece of glass in your way.

First off, the windshield is big enough that if any significant portion of the glass gets damaged enough so that you can't see it, you generally can see enough to pull over to the side of the road. Glass is ungodly simple this way--if you critically damage part of it, the whole thing isn't going to fail.

Secondly, glass is relatively easy to fix and cheap to replace: A new windshield runs for around $200. Any camera/monitor combo would likely cost tens of times as much. What's more, even if you've got a chasm-of-doom running down the middle of your windshield, you can still drive (albeit not terribly legally). With a cam/monitor combo, a dead camera means a useless car.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the human factor. The human optical system is a very complex systems that's been honed for tens of thousands of years to process lots of bits of information at once. When I'm driving down the freeway at 75mph, maybe ten or twenty car-lengths behind someone, I can feel if I'm getting closer or farther away from them, despite there being a speed difference of only a couple of mph. Most peoples' eyes are also much sharper than most LCD screens (we won't discuss CRTs -- they're big, heavy, and a major safety hazard -- would you like a vacuum-filled glass tube in front of your head when you get in a wreck?) I've seen camera-and-LCD rear-view mirror replacements, and I haven't been impressed. Even at high resolutions, there's a lack of detail and intuitive connection to the image. It's the same feeling as looking through a periscope--your mind loses its connection to the object that you're looking at. You don't have any of those problems with glass.

Re:The Next Step

[Pig Hogger]

What with all the automobile modifications for running computers, the next logical step is to simply replace the windshield with a monitor.

Yeah, like in the old "Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles"!!! (From this page)...

Re:The Next Step

[taliver]

It would be much safer if you turned the driver around, had himfacing the rear of the vehicle. Now head on collisions could have a lot of crumple space, and rear collisions would be the problem.

However, the steering wheel doesn't need to be physically linked to the wheels, so you could have force feedback elecronically, and not have to worry about it being pushed into your chest during an accident.

However, I guess it comes down to a person in a high velocity box. There are only so many configurations.

Re:The Next Step

[crashcheval]

The idea sounds interesting, but I think there would be a major problem if the system crashes. Or, it could give a whole new meaning to the term.

Re:The Next Step

[zhensel]

Check out this review of the honda insight - http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q00/honda/insi ght-1.html ... the guy modded the car and replaced the side mirrors with ccd cameras linked to displays to the sides of the stearing wheel. They also mounted a windmill to charge the battery :)

The info about the mods is on the 4th page - http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q00/honda/insi ght-4.html

Re:The Next Step

[brandon]

Your last points are good, but a camera won't cost $2000 to do this, and having a dual camera system failover, would fix the problem of a shattered lens. You could put glass 6 inches infront of each camera, and if one glass gets shattered, it costs $20.00 to buy another 4x4 inch glass window that's infront of the camera, now the only othe thing to worry about is lens flare, but that can be taken care of with software I would bet.

Re:The Next Step

[athakur999]

The human optical system is a very complex systems that's been honed for tens of thousands of years to process lots of bits of information at once.

The biggest problem I can see with replacing a windshield with a camera is that you lose your stereoscopic vision. I haven't see any good way of replicating it either that doesn't hamper anything else.

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

All of you people who disagree with Talisman are idiots! I would like nothing more than to sit in my dark confined box on wheels and stare at yet another monitor in my life. I, like most of you, am a multi-tasking robot god. I talk on the phone, calculate integrals, monitor email transmitions from black-listed countries, explore my inner soul, turn coke into pepsi, lick the cat's butt, and lastly and least-importantly drive my car simultaneously. As for crashing and incurring bodily harm?? My father was superman and thus I inherited superhuman strength and vitality... thats right, I can never die; and yes, I CAN see your underware right now! As for the "human optical system" being very complex? Well milkmandan9, I have been blind since the day I was born, but I can drive my car just as well as anybody else with their precious "sight" and "depth-perception". What happens if the vehicle looses power you ask Wells2k??? I plug my handy-dandy, garden variety, genetically altered potatoe arm into the cigarette lighter and give my little auto a jolt. As you all know, potatoes can be used to generate electricity...

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/21/1947 22 2&mode=thread

actualy folks, i'm just joking. I think some of you guys are taking this way over the limit.... i mean, come on. Monitor for a windshield... Talisman was obviousely daydreaming of the future, not trying to convince people that all cars everywhere will have monitors for windshields starting next week! I'll tell you what Mr. Hydrogen tells the balloon..... Lighten up! :)

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

They also mounted a windmill to charge the battery

That's just going to cause you to use more gas to carry the windmill and go against the increased drag. I would assume an alternator would be much more efficient.

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just take mass transit...

Re:The Next Step

[guru_steve]

Imagine that... if you replaced the windshield with a "monitor," that'd sure bring a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death!

Rendundant, yes; but it had to be said!

Re:The Next Step

[Lumpy]

we won't discuss CRTs -- they're big, heavy, and a major safety hazard -- would you like a vacuum-filled glass tube in front of your head when you get in a wreck?)
Everyone who drives a Riveria from the years 1989-1996 do. That center system is a 9" monocrome tube.

They are very safe, and work better in a vehicle that isnt in the warm south.

Re:The Next Step

[netsharc]

They don't drive with the windmill on top of the car, that would be idiotic. The windmill can recharge the car's batteries overnight with winds of about 12mph, while the car is parked.

Great efficiency. The camera hack is also cool, IMO.

Re:The Next Step

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I know it's off topic, but new car windshields can easily have close to $1000 list price. Older car's windshields cost less. It is in part to the age, size of windshield and how much money they think they can get for it.

But otherwise your point remains and I agree.

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

1 word: LEXAN.
I'm talkin the shit they build F-16 canopys out of. Those suckers will easily take small arms fire (they will scar, unfortunately tho), so I hardly see a highway rick being a real hazard. And, if it's big enough to cause that camera housed in bullet proof plastic to become incapacitated, you have other problems to worry about. Really.
Someday, (not today) LCD screens (or something similar) will be much sharper than you can see. They will be able to conform to curvature (like a modern windscreen), and will be less prone to glare. Hell, maybe it will be holographic. Point is, it's a cool dream, but not realistic today (although the new Cadiallacs have the night-vision stuff built in, this is really freakin cool, but if a rock kills the lens (prismatic special deal) your'e out a grand. You'd think they'd put a protection layer there....)

Re:The Next Step

[Snowfox]

What with all the automobile modifications for running computers, the next logical step is to simply replace the windshield with a monitor.

Cameras mounted on the front of the car would provide the driver with images from the road. The rest of the 'screen' could be divided into whatever the user(s) would like.

That's all very well and good until you swerve to avoid a fucking X10 popup and end up taking out some poor grannie crossing the road.com.

Re:The Next Step

[cdh]

Yes, the newer Cadillacs have this exact thing. It has a night vision system via a HUD. See it at Cadillac's web site.

Re:The Next Step

[milkmandan9]

Normally I don't respond to ACs.

But I've been playing with Lexan recently.

First: Lexan discolors in sunlight. It's not exceptionally quick, but it will discolor after a year or two.

Second: Lexan scratches--easily. Granted, you can get the specially-coated stuff, but that's really expensive...which brings me to:

Third: Lexan is really really expensive. The bullet-proof stuff you speak of is between $85/sq.ft and $115/sq.ft. Figure 3x5' windshield--that's 15 sq.ft, or $1275 for just the raw, unformed, uncut, unpolished, and non-scratchproof Lexan. The government can afford that for their ~$30 million F-16...but I'm not paying it on my $13k Kia. Even at 1/4", you're looking at $200 for the raw materials, and you still need to replace it every two years.

Fourth: It's used already on race-cars. The DOT hasn't approved it for street use (although they've been known to make very bone-headed moves in the past.) It's used for a bunch of stuff. It's not being used on cars. Glass does a nice job (especially considering that it shatters into tiny bits to let your head poke through instead of making your head splatter all over the inside). I like glass.

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

and they scratch so easy that a neoprene wiper will horribly scratch it in one wipe.

why do you think that when on the tarmac all jets have a special soft cover on the cockpit canopy.

Re:The Next Step

[_UnderTow_]

I don't see how this is the next logical step.

Some people can break a glass with their voice, but the simplest way to break one is to pick it up and drop it on the floor.

Glass windshields work, period. They are cheap to manufacture, and cheap to replace. There is absolutely no reason to replace them with a gigantic monitor. Perhaps making windshields out of something more durable than glass (such as whatever material is used for bullet-proof windows) would be logical, depending on how much it costs (i have no idea).

Re:The Next Step

[spencerogden]

I don't think any one was suggesting Lexan windshields. They were suggesting lexan protection for the cameras.

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars will be obsolete before that. Haven't you heard? We'll all be using electric scooters and maglev trains that fly across the ground almost as fast as a jetliner...

Re:The Next Step

[Anonymous Coward]

hey I just had this idea for an AMAZING invention, lets get this thing.. I'll call it 'glass' for sake of a better argument, it is pretty tough, withstands compression pretty well, and when properly treated can be made shatter proof.

If we use this 'glass' inplace of the composite matieral you propose the driver would have 100% visability*.

Other distractions like linux, kernel panics and Quake3 can wait untill the journey is complete!.

Untill cars can reliably drive themselves, lets keep linux, windows, and anything that requires more than a couple of seconds of attention out of a car.

*assuming good conditions for viewing outside the car

Re:The Next Step

[armb]

> It would be much safer if you turned the driver around, had him facing the rear of the vehicle.

Do we get the rest of the cool SPV features with that?

http://members.tripod.com/chris_bishop_ca/page28 .h tml

Re:Jetta Coupe? -Amendment

[Julius X]

I forgot to mention that its not just the widgets...but the Winamp/Nullsoft for Windows icons too.

And WHO in their right minds uses fake woodgrain on a Jetta? That makes the entire car look sooo cheezy!

redundant -1

[Anonymous Coward]

it's allready mentioned in the blurb lazerbrain...

Games!?!?!

[Xenopax]

I hope they come out with a driving game for this.

Re:Games!?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard they had a hack in place that allowed you to actually control the vehicle through the driving game/simulator! Not only that, but the games graphics were renderings of the environment around the real vehicle!

Oh, wait. Maybe I was just driving.

The software page mentions VmWare

[defMan]

The software page talks about vmware and win98 being installed for the GPS/Street Atlas software. On the screen shot they might have taken the windows view, although it seems to be running just a bit more then GPS software there.
Is there no good Linux GPS/Atlas stuff out there? Maybe someone should give them a pointer to it.

Re:The software page mentions VmWare

[Anonymous Coward]

There is.

Well, there will be.

We're still writing it.

It will be very, very cool.

Re:The software page mentions VmWare

[pa-guy]

GpsDrive works really well.

GPSDrive HOMEPAGE

Re:The software page mentions VmWare

[bergeron76]

Dude, you are a god. Thanks sooo much for that link. Last time I checked there was no good GPS software for linux. I'm soooo stoked. I can finally drop Windows 100%.

A sincere Thank you!!! (no kidding)

Read this!

[wiredog]

Article about the dangers of car PC's and cell phones use while driving.

Re:Read this!

[nuintari]

They wanna outlaw talking on cell phones while driving, with good cause. Then someone comes along and inventsd "mobile quake 3 for the really bvored driver!"

God we're dumb.

Re:Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the damn link, mr. "read this". It isn't for the driver, it's for the passengers.

Re:Read this!

[aridhol]

It isn't for the driver, it's for the passengers.

It's supposed to be for the passengers. However, he also admits (in the FAQ) that he does use it sometimes while driving. And if these started making it into Joe Driver's car, you know that drivers will start using it, no matter the intention. It already happens - I quite regularly see people using their laptops in cars.

Re:Read this!

[Quizme2000]

Great, now Bill Gates can say open source movement can kill.
When somebody gets hit when the driver's attention is distracted by the radio, phone, or tv it is an accident that was 100% avoidable in the eyes of the law. Just having this rig in your car makes you liable for any accident your in, and any would be theif walking pass your ride. If this is for passenger use Only(?) it fine, just like the game systems/TVs in minivans. Adding anything to the dashboard that distracts the driver is extremly dangerous period. Voice activitation and HUD won't solve the problem either, its still distracts.
IMHO when automated driving systems become standard (which they will) then I'll have no problem with the driver of the SUV fragging the scrpit kiddie in the minivan.

Re:Read this!

[kurowski]

the article that you link to not only exploits cumulative round-off errors in order to magnify a point, but it's also overly simplistic. i routinely dial my cell phone one handed while at a stop light, and i don't always finish dialing by the time the light turns green. regardless, i notice the light turn green as it changes and proceed to accelerate as i continue dialing. either his statement that human attention is "not multithreaded" is wrong, or i've got dialing down to a reflex. also, i then turn on the speakerphone, set the phone on my passenger seat, and hold a conversation while driving through downtown boston, swerving to avoid bicyclists, stopping suddenly as people ahead of me run red lights, and rerouting to avoid congestion. all while carrying on that phone conversation. so, perhaps while the author has a hard time talking and driving, i don't.

outlawing cell phones in cars because they're a distraction? fucking retarded idea- what's next, outlawing passengers? luckily the author doesn't go that far, he just advises those building in-car devices to take driving into account when figuring out price/performance trade-offs.

Re:Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just having this rig in your car makes you liable for any accident your in

um, this is true in what country, exactly?

Adding anything to the dashboard that distracts the driver is extremly dangerous period. Voice activitation and HUD won't solve the problem either, its still distracts.

sure... you don't spend much time driving in urban centers, stopped in traffic, stopped at lights, stopped for construction, or even stopped on the side of the road to lookup some driving directions, do you?

there are lots of times when it's perfectly safe to divert your attention from driving to something else. those times are called "being stopped". just because some imbeciles choose to read newspapers and play video games while driving doesn't mean that i'm willing to have all those activities outlawed in motor vehicles.

Re:Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

accident your in
accident you're in

Re:Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you have the sense to use a speakerphone when you're driving. Most of these laws are targetted at the idiots who drive (badly) while holding a cell phone in their hand. Some people can drive safely and talk on a cell at the same time, but all too many people cannot.

Re:Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

while the laws may be targeted at bad drivers with hand-held phones, the letter of these law often bans use of any hand-held phone in a motor vehicle, which would make my hand-held speakerphone illegal to use.

Re:Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

They already did, in NY.

He's running VMWare - Windows 98

[tmhsiao]

If you look at the dashpc.com site, he mentions that he's running VMWare for Windows 98 access to the GPS software.

Re:He's running VMWare - Windows 98

[Lumpy]

and the reason is because all of the current gps/mapping software projects for linux are completely dead.

mayko xmap is gone, the open source xmap called hugo is gone, and noone will use the free map database (tiger line) for their map sources.

Linux fails miserably in the land of navigation and mapping, and unfortunately it will stay that way for a really long time.

Re:He's running VMWare - Windows 98

[seann]

troll.

Re:He's running VMWare - Windows 98

[Anonymous Coward]

moron.

how can a dolt like you call this troll, it is a fact. Both real nav/map systems for linux have disappeared off the net forever, and the one map database that is 100% for everyone the Tiger line database from the us sensus is not used by any other open source project. (It is in fact used by delorme and every commercial system)

give one, just ONE linux mapping system or nav system that is avasilable.

Re:He's running VMWare - Windows 98

[Lumpy]

and he doesnt have to.
I just tried it and YES Delorme 5 works fine under wine with the delorme tripmate.

so the added costs and overhead for vmware and winsomething is overhead that was never needed.

Windows is not needed on this machine for any reason.

Re:Wow, a dashboard linux box running windows, ama

[ethereal]

Hmm, just like the Best Buy circular I got yesterday - the front was all about a Sony Vaio Pentium 4 with Windows XP, but of course the screen shot was showing Mac OS (and not OS X either). You may have seen it - the screenshot was an email program with a mail being composed about getting one of the new N'Sync bobble-head (there's a redundant statement) dolls. If technology companies can't get their ads straight, it's no wonder that the rest of the world is so confused about what's what.

boot up time

[Anonymous Coward]

it is pretty stupid to run a system in a car that you have to wait for it to boot up. why dont they just take the guts out of like a IPaq and integrate it into the car. and yes if you MUST you can put linux on it just to be cool. but I would want a custom OS to run on it.

question...

[turbine216]

did anybody catch anything on either site that explains how the realtime weather information got in there? There's no mention of a mobile data link, other than GPS. Is GPS capable of relaying this type of information?

Re:question...

[bergeron76]

The weather and traffic data are gathered when the car is still in the garage via 802.11

Re:question...

[Ledge]

There is a REALLY long retractable spool of cat5 with amplifiers every so often mounted on the rear bumper. Works fine as long as you return home using the same route that you used to get to work.

Re:question...

[turbine216]

did you just make that up? Nothing on the site indicates that the box has WiFi built in. It mentions a 10/100 ethernet card, but i would imagine that it's only for VERY occasional file transfers, involving removal of the box.

Re:question...

[Jestyr]

Yeah.
He looks ouside the window.. instant weather updates :P

Re:question...

[petree]

I'm not sure if this is what is allowing for realtime weather because their site has been /.ed

But anyways, you could do this sort of thing using traditional radio and/or shortwave. I have seen an alarm clock that could tell you the forcast (not just play that radio station, but it had a display) and the current conditions outside. The ability to include something like this in a car-based computer would most likely not add more than 15-20 to the total cost because there would be no need for a dedicated display.

This would be a function most people would actually use on the AutoPC.

P.S. It still makes me sick that people would actually want Windows CE running on their car stereo, let alone full blown Wnidows98 running in their dash board PC....

Re:question...

[bartle]

did you just make that up? Nothing on the site indicates that the box has WiFi built in.

It's on his News page. The 10/25/01 entry had the following:

The screen resolution on the display is limited to 640x480 so I've decided to drop the window manager. I'm going to use perl/Tk to roll my own UI. I put a few pictures at the bottom of the pictures page. I'm currently downloading the images (via 802.11) for weather and traffic before I leave the parking garage. By the time I get out of the parking garage, the system has booted, the network connection is live, and the system pulls the images off the web. In addition, the car uploads the latest GPS coordinates, so if the car ever disappears, the authorities can recover it. Since ricochet went down, I'll have to figure out another way to do the wireless connectivity. I'm thinking about cellular at this point, but I'm not sure just yet. The user interface is coming along nicely. I also added a radio card to the system. It was killing me not having talk radio on my way in to work. The Hauppauge cards have a coax connector which is why I chose it.

Sometimes, when I'm stopped at a red light, I can get an ethernet connection. I must be jumping on to someones 802.11 base unit. All your 802.11 base are belong to us.

Beowulf Clustering Anyone?

[Catiline]

Take a large dose of computing power, throw in a dash of hackerism how-to, and top with a smattering of WiFi... beowulf supercomputing on the (real) highway!!!
Now those long, traffic-jam laden commutes might not be so bad for society after all- just add a little distributed computing.

So how does that compare to

[Anonymous Coward]

... the competing "Dashboard Jesus" product? For those of you who are not familiar with DJ, it's what keeps you on the road, safe from harm's way when driving. Cheap and reliable, if not awfully stylish or fashionable.

(anyone remember words to that song?)

couple it with a "heads-up" display...

[motherfuckin_spork]

and get confused as to whether or not your shooting at the sniper in the tower or the Navigator cutting you off...

Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[ReidMaynard]

Please note: This system was designed for the enjoyment of my passengers.

*My* passengers are to busy praying not to die, while I navigate my bmw @ 2xSpeed Limit speeds.

Re:Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been long known that some men are able to mentally compensate for certain small bady parts by driving excessively fast; it now appears that this can also be achived be merely bragging about driving fast on nerdy websites.

Re:Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

does your giant compensation problem bother them too? or maybe the black hole where your dick used to be?

why not just buy an inflatable phallic object so you can drop the pretense and just SHOW people what you're trying to make up for...

Re:Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[studboy]

are they? remind them that lights timed for 30mph are also timed for 60!

Re:Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[ReidMaynard]

well, I *do* have unusually small pinky-toe toenails.....

as a PS, Truthfully, I only drive really fast by myself.

Re:Ho-Hum, Friday afternoon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have really small pinky-toe-toenails too eh?
You know you're a freak when you go to a pedologist, and she says "COOL!!!"
Fortunately for me, she happened to be turned on by my freakishly small toenails... *Cough* Yeah, Right...

wowowow!

[Anonymous Coward]

can you imagine a Steppenwolf Cluster of these??? Now *that's* a magic car-pet ride!!!

Re:Jetta Coupe? -Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

And WHO in their right minds uses fake woodgrain on a Jetta? That makes the entire car look sooo cheezy!

Well, it is a GLX, so some woodgrain came with the car. Just not as much. What I want to know is who in their right mind gets an automatic transmission and then tweaks the engine.

Hey is that... hmmm...

[The Bungi]

I can't tell a lot from the screenshots other than a default Win desktop with some Winamp shortcuts. I was wondering if this is that "Mobile Windows" thing from Microsoft that is supposed to be specific for automobiles? OTOH this looks more like a standard small-footprint PC than anything else.

If so then it's probably nothing new - just clever wiring and some GPS software.

I have to say though, the keyboard seems mighty stupid. And games??? I mean, maybe in a traffic jam but I can't see the point.

Devices like these need to be voice controlled, if anything. Actually, someone needs to come up with an input device that can be mounted in the steering wheel and functions as both a mouse and basic keyboard, maybe even support for gestures and so on.

Oh, and definitely put the display in a HUD or something. More people have died from looking down to change the radio station than hit by trains at intersections =)

Re:Hey is that... hmmm...

[laserjet]

I wish you would read at least some of the article. he clearly states that the system is for passengers while he is driving, not to fuck with when he is driving. any person that has a brain knows that would be very dangerous. if i were a passenger, i would love to play wolfenstein while on a roadtrip.

Re:Hey is that... hmmm...

[The Bungi]

if i were a passenger, i would love to play wolfenstein while on a roadtrip.

No doubt you would.

Transform a traffic jam into a party?

[AchilleTalon]

Add wirless networking capabilities and each traffic jam will transform into a huge gaming party.

Anyway, there is many practical uses for this. However, a sticker should state: "Don't surf and drive!"

it uses windows for the atlas

[ChimChim]

Am i the only one who visited the "software" section of the site? for everyone's benefit:

* Red Hat Linux 7.1
* M$ Windows 98 installed on VMWare for Linux (used only for GPS/Street Atlas RWE)
* VMWare for Linux

* XMMS (Linux)
* StreetAtlas Road Warrior Edition

so the answer is: yes, indeed the screens do look like windows, because they are.

christian.

Re:it uses windows for the atlas

[Anonymous Coward]

lol.. my appologies. When i visited the site it must have been getting hammered becuase I was downloading the page at apprx. 100 to 200 bytes per sec!! Ahhh, never thought racing snails would be so exciting.

See Comment...

[ijx]

See this comment.

Windows in the screenshot, Linux in the text?

[grnbrg]

It might be that the screenshots are of a "proof-of-concept" prototype that had Win98 loaded, but Linux will be loaded on the "production" version...

If (as has been previously suggested) this is not much more than a mini-PC with some additional extra stuff to manage a graceful shutdown, then replacing a full Win98 install with a Linux install should not be too difficult.

And he wouldn't have to may the M$ tax.

Just my C$0.02...

grnbrg

Re:Windows in the screenshot, Linux in the text?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that, about a US$0.001 these days?

:)

Single DIN GPS

[sct]

What I am looking for is a single DIN GPS system.

I have a WRX with an area for a gauge pod on the dash that could hold a single din unit, I saw someone had mounted a Kenwood there.

Does anyone know if such a beast exists?

Re:Single DIN GPS

[LennyNero]

There are single DIN GPSes but unfortunately you will probably not like their prices, as they are designed for small aircraft, and being FAA rated means that they cost several thousand.

GPS Quake

[EccentricAnomaly]

Seems like the GPS could be used as an alternate controller for Quake.... Then head on out to your neighborhood salt flats... Actually, you could do this now with a GPS and a laptop :)

Re:GPS Quake

[Captain_Frisk]

The biggest problem here is refresh rate. Otherwise your idea is pretty cool. Probably want to use it to run doom instead, because mouselook in your car might be tough.

Nifty

[chihowa]

This is great.
I've put a system in my car that does a few of these things. It's based on a regular x86 system, but uses straight DC-DC for power (eats less power). The BASIC STAMP I used (BS2-SX) is set up to power up the computer on ignition and it can start the car on a signal from the computer, as well. I'm in the process of setting my trunk button on my keyless entry to turn on the computer instead. I have a 5" LCD (no touchscreen yet!) and tiny keyboard (keypad next to the LCD, too).
So far it has integratio with my GPS: moving map, output to my stereo, 802.11b (to work on it from my home, transfer music, etc), and the beginning of an interface to my car's CPU and testing system.
I'm using a big deep-cycle battery to power it (charges from car) when the car isn't on, but I really just want to make it more low-power from the bottom up. My car is pretty light-weight anyway (RX-7), so I'd like to lose the battery eventually.
This is mostly spare parts and home-built electronics, though, so I spent less than $200 on it as it is. My entire CD collection is in it in fairly high bitrate mp3/ogg files.
Once the car CPU interface is complete, I can have all sorts of useless realtime stats to look at instead of the road!
Now I just need retractable wings and I'm set. (Maybe oil-slick and caltrops, too!)

Re:Nifty

[Conan the Grammarian]

What's the IP address? Let me know when you'll be driving so I can hack your ignition.

Re:Nifty

[laserjet]

127.0.0.1

Re:Nifty

[Conan the Grammarian]

Aha! I hacked it, and MAN was it easy - your security sucks. Well, let's see... you've got all kinds of kiddie porn and Britney Spears MP3s on your hard drive - and hey! That's my term paper! How did you get that?

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

You can watch a DVD, make a call, or play Half life while running over pedestirans...

I can not wait till cars start to fly and we have them start to hit buildings and fall from the sky so distracted drivers can kill people by the score. Because one or two at time is what we seem to be limited to now...

What we REALLY need . . .

[cjpez]

A bunch of us were talking once about how keen it'd be to actually have Linux RUNNING your car. As in, replace whatever's in the "little black box" with Linux.

So you'd actually have /dev/engine, /dev/wheel[0123] . . . Some stuff under /proc to report stats and the like. You'd have things like "steerd" running in the background to handle steering. Get a remote interet connection up and you could even SSH into your car to diagnose engine problems! Think of the possibilities!

You could even use the standard Linux sound structure to deal with your car's audio system. /dev/audio and the like. Have mpg123 for mp3s, some cd player to deal with CDs. Heck, since we're doing mp3s now, you could actually serve mp3s up to OTHER cars running Linux! We could probably hack up Gnutella to do some keen P2P stuff. ("Damn, I forgot my NIN CD at home. But wait! That Honda over there is sharing them! Great!")

Of course, then you've gotta worry about people h4x0ring into your car. That'd bite. We'd have to make sure there's some pretty thorough iptables rules going on . . . And what happens if your kernel panics? Doh! Probably not the best situation to be running a "testing" kernel on. I can see the website now: "Well, the bug that was causing engine meltdowns was fixed in 2.5.13-pre5, so I suggest everyone upgrade . . ."

Gives a whole new meaning to the whole "no warranty implied" thing, eh? Would you want the preemptible kernel patches on that thing?

So what do most cars actually run on, anyway?

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Mr. Sketch]

So what do most cars actually run on, anyway?

Embedded RTOSs I'm guessing. Mostly custom made.

Anyways, I'd hate to have linux running on my system, imagine if steerd segfaulted, or my car got h4x0rd by an 31337 5kR1p7 K1dd13.

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[mindstrm]

Cars *actually* run on pure, native instructions, for some kind of embedded processor. They may use an RTOS....who knows.
I certainly woudl not want linux running my car.

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Casca]

Just don't upgrade to kernel 2.4.14...

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[cjpez]

heh.

But on a serious note, what's wrong with 2.4.14 besides having to patch loop.c by hand? Kernel Newsflash doesn't have anything to say about it, and I haven't had problems with it myself (haven't had time to get up to 2.4.16 yet) . . .

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine if MS's "Clippy" was installed on a car running Win9x.

"It looks like you're trying to make a left hand turn..."

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Wreck]

A sys admin at NASA where I worked for a while had the following vanity tag:

DEV CAR

My normal reaction to vanity tags is "loser"... this is the only one I have ever envied.

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

So what do most cars actually run on, anyway?

Not much of anything, I think. I'm sure the other poster is right who said that it'd be custom real-time OSs. But also the computers in the car aren't sophisticated or centralized. Sorry, no /dev/audio or /dev/wheel[0-3]. I'd bet there's a chip to manage each thing that needs to be managed and they don't talk much.

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

But on a serious note, what's wrong with 2.4.14 besides having to patch loop.c by hand?

I assume he meant to say 2.4.15. It has filesystem corruption problems on unmount. Not good.

Re:What we REALLY need . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL LMAO

funny man

Basic Stamp?

[EvlPenguin]

Uses a basic stamp for interfacing? What a piece of shit (not to be base or anything). I'm sorry but any product that needs a eeprom dedicated to interpriting serial BASIC code is not something I would buy (not to mention it is slow as hell).

If they needed to use basic, they should be using something like the PicBASIC Compiler, which will optimize the equivalent code and compile it into hex (so there's no need for a basic interpriter on the board). It still boggels the mind as to why they would use a basic stamp when something like picbasic (or just learn pic asm! It's not hard!) on one of the new higher end PIC Micros (like the 17Fx series... here) with 16K of flash memory. BS Stamps use one of these themselves (though I think they use the older 16F84), but the code is stored onboard as BASIC and then interprited through a seperate serial line and micro controller.

Other than that, i still think it's just stupid. There's only one good reason to have a computer in your car....

Re:Basic Stamp?

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap, man... Check your spelling!

Re:Basic Stamp?

[gol64738]

Other than that, i still think it's just stupid.

the must be a reason why you're so negative about this project. i've set up a similar system in my GTI and now cannot live without it.

you either own a piece of shit of a car, or you're angry because you've been unsuccessful in your projects.

Re:Basic Stamp?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, what? You lost me when you said "compile it into hex." Huh? You mean binary, or machine code? The rest of your comment looked like a mess of lingo and buzzwords.

Re:Basic Stamp?

[mindstrm]

Maybe they used the STAMP because it was readily available, and easy to make changes to while in development?

Re:Basic Stamp?

[Xawen]

The basic stamp is used to turn the thing on and shut it down, how much speed does it need??? Basic is easy to learn and painless to use for small applicaitons like this. Why would you go through the trouble of using something so much more complicated to do such a simple task. 16k is a lot of memory just to send a signal to the motherboard that the key changed position. I thought it was a pretty good idea myself...

Re:Basic Stamp?

[EvlPenguin]

Uhm.... as I said there is a big difference between basic (the language) and the bs stamp (an actual board, with sevral chips and lots of supporting components). With PICs, you can program the chips in basic, but you must compile it first, which even the average windows luser can do. Not to mention that the Stamp costs (retail) around $50 more than a single chip. Plus there are the other advantages of a single chip (low power consumption, less points of failure, smaller boards), and they can still be reprogrammed if need be over a three-wire serial interface (Vss, Vdd, signal). The 16K ram size was just one of the variations. If you look on microchip.com you'll see that there is a wide variety down to 1K if you only needed that much...

Ugh. Forget it... no offense, but you are clearly not knowledgable about this type of thing. I just think a 8 (or 16) pin PLCC or S mount chip and a resonator is preferable to a 2"x4" board (see reasons above).

Re:Basic Stamp?

[bergeron76]

I designed the dashpc, and I agree with you fully. Now I am at the refinement stage and I'm looking into using a PIC to replace the BS2. The learning curve on the PIC was too steep (in asm) and at the time I just wanted to "do" this project. The BS2 was simple and cheap, so I went with it. As I make the transition to a PIC, if you'd like to offer any assistance, I'd be much obliged. Contact me via the site, or my email above.

Re:Wow, a dashboard linux box running windows, ama

[Bandman]

>Hmm, just like the Best Buy circular I got
>yesterday - the front was all about a Sony Vaio
>Pentium 4 with Windows XP, but of course the >screen shot was showing Mac OS

Are you sure??? I mean, there's not THAT much difference...

:-)

I love how old this article is

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I remember this article from over a year ago on /. It is Windows, yes, there is/was no mentioning of Linux on the original MP3Jetta site (where the screenshots are from, I remember the wood keyboard and the screenshot of Southpark on the dash LCD). I don't know why they'd pose it was Linux, maybe to make Linux users feel special. :P

I'm going to get flamed for this

[Anonymous Coward]

If he is using VMware to Win98 to run the GPS software and is using a WinAmp clone, why not just use Windows. A minimal install that does nothing but play mp3s in WinAmp, and runs the GPS should be okay even for an MS OS to run fine.

Because you have to have a license for Windows anyway so why not just use it.

Re:I'm going to get flamed for this

[netsharc]

Quite right, I first thought he used Linux so that he can use Perl to monitor for the shutdown signal, but he has an ATX motherboard, so it would be no problem to use Windows, because the motherboards sends a software interrupt when you press the power button while the computer is running; Windows can either put the computer to standby, or shut it down safely.

Maybe it's because he doesn't want to hassle with reboots.

Just a few questions

[xah]

I have just a few questions.

First, can it download my e-mail? Second, can it read my e-mail, and maybe e-books, to me, using a text to speech synthesizer? Third, can it read it to me in a pleasing female voice?

Priceless...

[thrillbert]

In-Dash PC emmulating windows: US$1,000

802.11b Wireless LAN card: US$120

Airsnort: Free

Sending a WinPopUp that says "YOU ARE AN IDIOT" to the moron who just cut you off: Priceless

For some things there are hand signals, for everything else, there's Linux.

Needs a heads-up display

[Nooface]

This would be much more useful with a headsup display.

Hope he doesn't get that impounded

[Anonymous Coward]

In many states, it's illegal to have a TV screen in the driver's field of vision installed in a car. Exceptions are GPS and other telematics devices. But video is a no-no. I don't know what the laws are for Florida, but I hope he has looked them up.

Scripting this baby

[tangent3]

Anyone care to write a parallel parking script for this?

cat "right 30" > /dev/wheel
cat "25" > /dev/accelerator
sleep 2
cat "0" > /dev/accelerator
cat "left 30" > /dev/wheel
cat "reverse" > /dev/gear

Re:Scripting this baby

[downundarob]

Dont foget to parse the locale, or you will have us left-hand drive countries parking on the centre line.

So if most of your apps are Windows...

[fmaxwell]

Why run Linux when your GPS software and other apps are native Windows apps? Just so you can say "Look at me! I'm one of the l33T linux dudez!"?

If you want to run Quake, UT, Winamp (or equivalent), and commercial GPS mapping software, you need Windows, not Linux. Of course, there's always someone with a really big hammer, a square peg, and a round hole...

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[gol64738]

isn't it obvious? since linux is open, it's a lot more configurable.
let's say he only wanted certain processes starting or stopping at particular times?
what if he wanted to run his choice of a journaling filesystem and wanted to tweak it for speed?
what if he wanted to run a webserver and database server without having to waste money on any licenses?

let's see you hack a unsupported touchscreen display into windows, hahaha.

look, with linux (and vmware) he has the best of both worlds PLUS ultimate configurability. he can make his car computer do whatever he wants.
if he were to install only windows, boy would he be limiting the power of his project.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[ocelotbob]

No, if I want Quake, UT, and MP3s, I'll run Linux, not Windows. Every single one of those programs run under Linux, quite well, mind you. And I bet if he ran a recent version of wine, he'd be able to run the GPS software as well. Yeah, you need a fine chisel to work around the rough edges, but far from the big hammer you seem to recommend. Linux is much more capable of running in this situation than you seem to think.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[Milican]

Well the article mentions some logic tied into the auxilliary power on the car. If he is using Linux he can design a rudimentary program which will shutdown the OS nicely when the car is shutoff (aux power off). If he is using Windows the task isn't trivial. Thats just one reason to use Linux. Good question though. The appropriate tool should always be used for the task at hand.

JOhn

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[James Skarzinskas]

On the contrary, 'ocelotbob'. It seems you are sadly one of the many overzealous "Linux is the only one true solution for everybody" people. Maybe it's a little beyond you, but, for the server/development environment; yes, Linux is the king of the ring, and I will _never_ use anything aside from it. However, there is a reason I keep two machines around at all times; you propose WINE to run it, but why have to 'emulate' it. It seems amusing how you folks always cry 'wine' (no pun intended) every time someone says 'run x software on Linux', well it's about time you clued in-- If it were supposed to run in Linux, they would have released a port or let you know on their site they were planning on it. There's a good chance it won't work as well or screw up while running emulated on Linux. Your attitude is commendably naive and your statements incorrect. Sure, if you want to smash your head in a wall by doing things your way, then yes, run everything under Linux emulated. (by the way, I'm not arguing with your Quake/UT/MP3s :) I have the LokiGames version and they play quite well :) just your yammering on about wine). Wine is under development right now, and seems almost like a buggy experiment and less like a viable solution for the moment being. I should hope you stop imparting your knowledge (or shocking lackof) on people who actually have a clue-- somethings just work better in Windows. Why do you think the system requirements on UT/Quake/etc ported to Linux are, umm, to say the least, sometimes greater than doubled? I rest my case. Oh wait, nah, I have a feeling some zealot moderator is going to come along and cry, "oh look he doesn't think Linux is perfect for everything, mod him down omfg he is antichrist" like the blundering children most of them are, and this footer is only to let them know I really don't care how you moderate me, because as long as my words have been heard, you haven't struck me down by any blow.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[Howie]

let's say he only wanted certain processes starting or stopping at particular times?

As long as the process is a linux process and not a windows one.

let's see you hack a unsupported touchscreen display into windows, hahaha.

since when does anyone release a device without windows drivers? The only people who have those sorts of problems are non-windows users (and XP users currently I guess), or those that built their own gear.

Besides, generating appropriate mouseup and mousedown events using SendMessage isn't too hard if you really wanted to do it.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[sir99]

dude, that's the third time you posted that comment in the last few months! wtf? Troll.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[fmaxwell]

Well the article mentions some logic tied into the auxilliary power on the car. If he is using Linux he can design a rudimentary program which will shutdown the OS nicely when the car is shutoff (aux power off). If he is using Windows the task isn't trivial.

Ever seen what windows does when hooked to a smart UPS? Windows shuts down based on relay closures in uninterruptable power supplies, so he would have zero software to design for Windows.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[fmaxwell]

what if he wanted to run a webserver and database server without having to waste money on any licenses?

Then he could run any number of them that are available for Windows. My favorite free web server for Windows is Savant. There's probably as much free Windows software as there is free Linux software.

Why would he run a web server when the thing is not connected to the web and has no IP address?

what if he wanted to run his choice of a journaling filesystem and wanted to tweak it for speed?

Then he needs a life. It's a dashboard toy. Use NTFS with Windows 2000 and be done with it.

look, with linux (and vmware) he has the best of both worlds PLUS ultimate configurability. he can make his car computer do whatever he wants.

No, he has a compatability mess and grotesque wasting of CPU horsepower.

if he were to install only windows, boy would he be limiting the power of his project.

What a boatload of penguin shit! There's not a single thing of consequence that he would need to do in a dashboard PC that can't be accomplished just as well under Windows as under Linux.

He can't even get decent GPS mapping software that runs under Linux.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[gol64738]

what's the point of a proper shutdown?
i've had a linux machine in my car (mp3 player) for six months now.

i've used both SGI's XFS and EXT3. the machine is *never* shut down properly and i don't have a single problem with my filesystem.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

There has been commercial auto GPS nav systems running on QNX for 2-3 years now.

http://www.qnx.com/realworld/vol12-1/cristine.ht ml

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[Milican]

Thats a good idea, and I had thought about that. If the designer of this system was to do this he would have to build a basic UPS interface to present to Windows. However, what is the standard for building the simplest, most basic UPS device? What is the standard for communicating to Windows you are a UPS device? I'm not sure. It may be really simple. It may require a microcontroller (pic or otherwise) to implement on the UPS device side. I'm not really sure. Both solutions require that you know serial port communications and electronics interfacing. The Windows solution would require that knowledge and the knowledge of UPS systems. Both would work. I feel more comfortable implementing this in Linux, but thats just me. I still think doing the job in Linux would be easier because I can get access to the serial ports with no problem in Linux (IMHO a pain in the ass in Win32), and I can roll my own circuitry in Linux without having to implement the UPS interface and protocol (whatever they may be). Clearly though, like all solutions there is more than one path.

JOhn

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[fmaxwell]

dude, that's the third time you posted that comment in the last few months! wtf? Troll.

Let's find out who's trolling: Provide links to my supposedly identical comments.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[bergeron76]

What a boatload of penguin shit! There's not a single thing of consequence that he would need to do in a dashboard PC that can't be accomplished just as well under Windows as under Linux.

Sure there is: The most notably being that I can't trim down my kernel to effectively reduce my boot time by a significant percentage. I haven't done this yet so I can't provide empirical data, however, I know for a fact that I can't change the Windows 2k kernel/hooks. If for no reason than that I've made my decision to use an "open source" operating system, and I'm ultimately happy. Having started the project on Windows (my initial creation), I've seen both sides and I can say that "linux works better [in this application]". I've gotten more support and tips from "those open-source types" than I could've possibly dreamed of from the "closed source or Microsoft" crowd. Consider your argument defeated and go busy yourself with a system reboot or something.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[gol64738]

Why would he run a web server when the thing is not connected to the web and has no IP address?
the thing has a wireless network built in. how bout customizing a php app running on apache that allows him customize and move files around? the possibilities are endless.

Then he needs a life. It's a dashboard toy. Use NTFS with Windows 2000 and be done with it.
ooh, sick. you're just used to having to 'make do'. get away from windows and that concept will change for you.

What a boatload of penguin shit! There's not a single thing of consequence that he would need to do in a dashboard PC that can't be accomplished just as well under Windows as under Linux.
you don't really think that's true do you? sheesh, after reading that last comment, i've just realized i've been trolled in. please disregard.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[fmaxwell]

What a boatload of penguin shit! There's not a single thing of consequence that he would need to do in a dashboard PC that can't be accomplished just as well under Windows as under Linux.

you don't really think that's true do you?

Yes. Prove me wrong.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[fmaxwell]

However, what is the standard for building the simplest, most basic UPS device?

One relay across two pins of a 9-pin D serial port.

Re:So if most of your apps are Windows...

[gol64738]

Yes. Prove me wrong.

ok, lets see you tweak your windows kernel for maximum performance for the task at hand. enough said.

Carmegeddon

[schporto]

So you can play Carmegeddon while driving? There's just something inherently screwy about that. Or playing a racing game while stuck in a traffic jam. Yesh the irony.
-cpd

Something else I want it to do..

[jcr]

My car was stolen a few months ago, and I got it back after about five weeks. From now on, when my car starts up, I want it to note where it is, take a picture of whoever's starting it up, and upload that information to a hidden FTP directory at my ISP.

The next time some asshole takes my car, I want to be able to e-mail their picture and location to the SFPD.

-jcr

Re:Something else I want it to do..

[linzeal]

Why not just take the thief for a ride? You could ssh into your car and drive him hurtling towards a military base. With the heightened security and the trigger happy 18 year old guards I'm certain you will get your insurance to sport you a brand new car.

Re:Something else I want it to do..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't be very hard, but I suggest you have it start recording as soon as the door opens. This way they can't just easily remove the camera before starting the car.

Re:Something else I want it to do..

[jcr]

I'd install the camera in the dash, and use a pinhole lens. There wouldn't be any way for the perp to know it was there unless he dismantled the instrument panel.

-jcr

Re:Something else I want it to do..

[ericski]

How about putting one of those GPS cards in it and have the location uploaded in near real time?

Re:Something else I want it to do..

[Anonymous Coward]

Update #56 ( 10/25/01 ):
The screen resolution on the display is limited to 640x480 so I've decided to drop the window manager. I'm going to use perl/Tk to roll my own UI. I put a few pictures at the bottom of the pictures page. I'm currently downloading the images (via 802.11) for weather and traffic before I leave the parking garage. By the time I get out of the parking garage, the system has booted, the network connection is live, and the system pulls the images off the web. In addition, the car uploads the latest GPS coordinates, so if the car ever disappears, the authorities can recover it. Since ricochet went down, I'll have to figure out another way to do the wireless connectivity. I'm thinking about cellular at this point, but I'm not sure just yet. The user interface is coming along nicely. I also added a radio card to the system. It was killing me not having talk radio on my way in to work. The Hauppauge cards have a coax connector which is why I chose it.

Damn.... He beat me to it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, i've been thinking about a Linux car recently... Seriously. A laptop or small desktop components, RAMdrive [or whatever], decent soundcard, GPS, 800X600 tft [to display GPS, mp3 voiceprint, etc], and a cellphone so i can call it up if i forget where i left it and have it voice synth or SMS the grid coords to me. [Kids: dont do weed!!].

I'll need a m8 to help with the software setup, i'm more of a hardware guy.

Link in the alarm system and u got some intelligent security... Using a 2000 watt stereo + some dinner jazz/country/elevator music.

Oh and to finish, blue neon, black leather, plus engine mods: Turbo (dump), zorst, alloys, ICE (stereo), and blacked windows.

just 1 question: How to i get the screen in the front? [instead of the ashtry, i aint dumb enough to indulge my addiction while driving] With the box in the boot side panel, i am concerned about image degradation cos laptop screens are kinda meant to stay attached to the keyboard part.

Ali [at london dot com]

This...

[Samuel Hughes]

brings a whole new meaning to "Fatal Error."

More info at www.dashpc.com !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder everyone is confused - the original link points to an article that only mentions Christopher's project. Full site can be found at http://www.dashpc.com where he explains everything! (from where to get that flat screen to why he uses windows running on top of linux)
Please mod up so other people can actually find useful info.
P.S. Is anyone else pissed at VW for not bringing their in-dash navigation system that is available for Passat in Europe?

Re:More info at www.dashpc.com !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you stop reading at the first link or something? www.dashpc.com is the second link, which is currently very slow. I assume Slashdot has something to do with the horrible lack of speed.

WWW.DUBLAB.COM

[K0R$ h4x0r ru1z]

This jackass has been posting his car on Slasdot for years. He finally has his article. Shameless.

More reasons to get in an accident

[djsable]

Jesus Christ, why not just paint over the windows with black spray paint, and go driving around in the mall. You won't be using the windows to see, between a computer, a dvd player, and a cell phone, why bother with such lame things as WATCHING WHERE YOU'RE DRIVING.

badger

security and holding your own

[ghoting]

In previous articles folks were talking about how their own DashPCs were lifted from their car. It seems the most inviting thing to the thief (from the outside) would be that fancy LCD.

So I've been thinking about this. Some implementations are for relatively simple things like MP3 playing. Would it be possible to use, say, your Visor or Palm that's collecting dust and use its infrared or some other wireless protocol to make it: 1) Act as a remote; and 2) Act as a display? When you leave the car, you bring your hand-held with you, and the only thing Johnny Momo sees from the outside is your stock stereo. It's above and beyond me how you'd do this, but it seems trivial compared to what some folks have already done.

Re:security and holding your own

[pa-guy]

I use the palmamp plugin for xmms. Works great.

Re:security and holding your own

[Anonymous Coward]

Panasonic makes in-car DVD players with TFT active matrix LCDs that retract into the dash when not in use, and will automatically extend from the dash and rotate upwards for use. Perhas something like this could be engineered for an in-dash LCD computer display. Someone can't steal what they can't see.

Re:security and holding your own

[Anonymous Coward]

I use VNC across several platforms including my Handspring Visor, Linux boxen and M$ machines. Can run my network from just about anywhere on earth. With a 802.11 or whatever connection on the DashPC, should be easy enough... Then could add remote starting/unlocking, alarms, etc...

What an incredible waste

[_pi-away]

I mean, that looks really damn cool, but it's in a goddamn jetta!

How long will the drives hold up

[Reefa]

I have thought of hooking up a PC in my car, but since I live in Chicago and I have have always wondered if the HDDs would be able to withstand the potholes in the road...ie will I start seeing a lot of bad sectors and read/write errors ?

R

New meaning

[MeNeXT]

to a systems crash!

Unlike most slashdot readers.

[eclectric]

Some people actually have passengers in their cars.

yeah, that perl script...

[Erris]

might not do to good under 98:

#!/usr/bin/perl
open(INFILE,"while () {
if ($_ eq "[SHUTDOWN]\r\n") {
exec("/sbin/shutdown -h now");
}
}

Let's see!

H:\>perl
'PERL' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

There you have it.

Re:yeah, that perl script...

[jedrek]

oh yeah...

C:\>perl -V
Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 6 subversion 1) configuration:
Platform:
osname=MSWin32, osvers=4.0, archname=MSWin32-x86-multi-thread

I also run '.pl' files as executables from the command line, without even having tu add the .pl. (ie. hello.pl will run if I type 'hello')

Besides, like 300 other people have mentioned (because they read the article) - the guy was running VMWare on Linux...

sheeh

Mirror

[Smirks]

Mirror available here.

Imagine a huge, empty field...

[Dog and Pony]

Then you imagine a car with too much horsepower, with Quake controlled by the wheel, the gas pedal, etc. All of which are still connected to their usual stuff as well. And the engine is running, the tank is filled.

Man, what a ride. :)

Then for the ultimate rush, the magic mushroom and the extra life, try navigating out from an ugly, cluttered and foreign-tounged bloat-portal. using Konquerer attached to the same navigation system. :)

major design problem

[Lumpy]

The LCD he uses for the dash will last exactly 1 week in any US location above mid-ohio.
LCD's die when they freeze and most every LCD from his listed source are rated only down to 20 degrees F michigan get's to -1 -2 on a regular basis every winter (except this winter, it was 65 yesterday) and in minnesota it gets to -15 at least twice.

the best choice for an LCD is something designed for vehicle use which has a wide temperature range. Nothing from his supplier is useable in a vehicle in the upper 40% of the northern hemisphere.

Re:major design problem

[glass_window]

well duh, look at the license plates! they're florida!

Re:major design problem

[Anonymous Coward]

well duh, the website says this, and anyone trying to reproduce his setup without intimate knowlege of lcd's will spend alot of money just to see it destroyed.

why dont you READ the post before commenting on it. it is mentioned in the post.

Pompous slash-moron. you think everyone equates florida="use any lcd you like in your car because only dipshits would use a regular one outside" no it dont. so please look in a mirror and repeat, i am a stupid pompous moron over and over... if that dont work, smash your head with a bat until you get the point.

It needs better games

[bluestar]

The right game for this is, of course, Carmageddon.

DashPC

[Anonymous Coward]

This site sucks - Linux sucks - face it. Even dashpc uses Win98:
M$ Windows 98 installed on VMWare for Linux (used only for GPS/Street Atlas RWE)

- But only for GPS - kind of a big deal though?

GEEKS - I guess some of you have to be proud of it.

Re:Jetta Coupe? -Amendment

[Anonymous Coward]

RC Hedrick!

Hmm, seems like it could use some work...

[bigfnb]

I think I can do one better. For fun, I hacked my Dodge Avenger. Starting by adding one of Kenwood's highly featured KDC-X917 radios. Plus CD Changer. Then got the hacked the din pinout for the cdchanger. Then hooked the dinpin out to a pic16c57, allowing me a little expansion. From the Pic, I go to a homebrew 500mhz machine, running linux, also hooked to the "aux" input on the CD changer, giving me yet another source on the radio. When on Aux on the radio, the left and right(skip buttons) then control my MP3 player. Anyone else with similair setups, or am I the only one with too much free time on my hands? When I get some info pics, I'll post them...

GTA

[WyldOne]

Just don't ever put on Grand Theft Auto 1,2 or 3.. just too much temptation.

VMWare

[itwerx]

He's got Win98 running under VMWare.
(Did you even look at the links?)
Cool setup, actually. Too bad he had to have M$ just for the GPS support (DeLorme).

Re:VMWare

[Jburkholder]

>Did you even look at the links?)

uh, yeah... eventually

thanks

Depth perception

[Minupla]

Interestingly enough, everyone has mentioned BSODs, etc, but has missed the big reason for not replacing a windshield with a monitor, probably because most of you take it for granted. You won't get depth perception with a monitor screen. It's amazing how much more difficult someone who uses depth perception day in and day out finds it when it's removed. For example, try this test. Hold your fingers pointing towards themselves at about 3/4 your total arm length at different distances away from you. Now touch them together. Now try the same trick, starting with your hands beside you, but before you hold them up, close one eye.

Kids: Don't try driving your parents' car with one eye closed.

I've never had depth perception, and I'm here to tell you I leave a lot more space when I'm driving then most people because of it.

Forgot something

[WyldOne]

sleep 2
cat "STOP!" >/dev/accelerator

802.11b

[sPaKr]

Where is the wireless card? This thing needs to have a wireless card so if someone brings their laptop along they can share mp3's and more. Also it would be kickass to write a discovery protocal across wifi, so as Im cruisin down the high way I can message the hot chick in the other lane. The other thing its missing is the built in cell phone and backup batteries. You need to be able to call into car no even if somone cuts the electrical and get fix via GPS, that way your smart bomb can target a car thief in seconds.

Imported...

[itwerx]

...duh! You've probably never seen a real BMW either (the ones with the Werke symbol on the corner of the trunk).
Lots of guys in the service get stationed overseas, pick up sweet Euro cars and bring 'em home. (And they can make a killing shipping American muscle cars over there too).

The commercial has a new Meatloaf song

[ChicagoFan]

The company that makes dashPC has hired Meatloaf to provide a theme song for their product: "Paradise by the Dashboard Linux".

(moderation: -9, agonizingly-painful wordplay)

ChicagoFan

WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

GPS in cars, got that. DVD's, games in cars, got that too. So why put a linux box in a car to do the same thing?

Linux needs to revolutionize, not reinvent.

Re:WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should check your own .sig before you post brother. You don't see any "WinMobiles" revolutionizing anything now do you? As far as your post is concerned, Linux is revolutionizing, or at last pioneering some new ground here. Why not aim for an open "multimedia unit" or something that does all of the above, versus some commercial shit that does some of it for x^2 the cost. Think about it...

Re:Wow, a dashboard linux box running windows, ama

[thpdg]

No, look again. It's running 9x, and the email window is pasted into the shot. It has a start button but a Mac title bar in the program. (assuming it's the same Best Buy ad) Morons... "I need a coookie..."

you motherfuckers are straight up sick...

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone on here ever get any pussy? i mean shit, what kind of fuck puts a goddamn fucking nigger-rigged linux setup in his *car*. that's just beyond me. you bastards need to "sign off" every once in a while, and "sign on" to this thing called reality.

eat shit, you goat-fucker nerds.

Where the windows screenies really come from...

[tordia]

If you check out the FAQ from the dashpc website, the second question is:
Does the car run Windows or Linux?
It runs linux. The first generation of it had windows installed. On the other hand, the first generation was a 10.4" LCD screen too.

I'm guessing that's where the screenshots of the Windows desktop come from.

Further down there's also this question, which explains why he made the switch:
What plugins do you use with Winamp?
I no longer use Winamp. I use XMMS for linux now. Windows sucks. Period. But you knew that already.

Yes, we did know that already. :)

and...

[Anonymous Coward]

and make sure you do it in reverse, otherwise it might get caught up in your wheels.

Re:Wow, a dashboard linux box running windows, ama

[ethereal]

Hmmm, I'll look when I get home. If so, that's an even lamer ad than I'd thought. Some ad agency had to fake a Mac email program and paste it onto a Windows computer. I can't believe they went to so much work to make their advertisement incorrect - it boggles the mind.

Had to be said. . .

["Zow"]

This would give an all new meaning to system crash.

I know, I know. I'm just lucky there isn't a "Punny (-1)" moderation category.

-"Zow"

fyi

[Anonymous Coward]

looks like chris' jetta is becoming more and more famous =)

Details, details!!!

[livitup]

So where are the details for the Basic Stamp so we can build one of these ourselves? Some programming instructions for the Stamp or a circuit diagram would be cool.

Re:Details, details!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Update #61 ( 11/23/01 - Happy Thanksgiving! ):
Due to the overwhelming number of requests that I've gotten for schematics, I've decided to put them up online. This is the design of the system, and this is the electronic schematic of the BS2 boot module. Please Note: This schematic is not 100% accurate. If you build this it will not work properly. I will post the "corrected" diagram shortly. I just didn't have the "actual" pinouts handy when I did the diagram. If you know anything about electronics, and read the BS2 documentation you could easily figure this out. I will answer questions if you have any.

Does this mean?

[RMBWebmaster]

Does this mean I can play gta while driving? :)

Re:Feline poop

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up u g4y d00dz (aka U who r g4Y)

Re:Feline poop

[Anonymous Coward]

Do u hav pics of nancy's spackled feet? 3883!