Build Your Own FreeBSD-powered Motorcycle

Durt_b1ker writes "Check this link out for a highly mobile FreeBSD computer with obligatory pics and video."

Comments

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean you have to have the daemon on your back and be a hells screen prompt?

Re:So...

[TheRaven64]

Linux is too, well second rate.

+3 Insightful.

Linux is far superior to BSD nowadays. (From a reply)

-1 Troll.

You've got to love the /. moderation system...

Not Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least you won't be getting a blue screen of DEATH!

Re:Not Windows

[Mick Ohrberg]

Does it have to support SMP for a V-twin?

Chuckle.

Looks like he used his motorcycle...

[mOoZik]

...to host his web site. No comments and it has already crashed. Literally.

Wait a minute...

[metalligoth]

...since BSD is dying, this is one motorcycle I'd never want to ride!

Mods: Have a sense of humor here. Seriously. I run a server with BSD at my company.

Re:Wait a minute...

[gstoddart]

Yeah, but he'll have such stability and uptime he'll never even need a kickstand again. ;-)

Re:Just for fun or did he have a reason?

[tuxq]

I was thinking he re-programmed the computer for the actual motorcycle with fbsd... WTF? What's the point of this? What is he going to do? Chat in IRC going down the road?! WTF?!

Motorcycle

[g-to-the-o-to-the-g]

Perhaps the motorcycle running their webserver is out of gas?

Watching a live slashdotting

[Twid]

Heh, I've never watched a friend get slashdotted live. Ben's trying to move the gallery links off to a static page right now! :)

18:27 <@toast> ben: your machine can't hold up :(
18:27 <@ben> go to slashdot
18:27 <@toast> oh wait, it's on /. front page
18:27 < twid> toast: nope
18:27 <@toast> omfg you got mentioned on slashdot you are so cool!
18:27 <@ben> yes.
18:27 <@ben> its the top hit
18:27 <@ben> on the front page
18:27 < twid> OMG BEN
18:27 <@toast> ben: CAN I BE YOUR FRIEND?!?!
18:27 < twid> omg the site is down already
18:27 <@toast> ben: your server lasted for like 3 seconds, GOOD JOB :)
18:27 < twid> hahahahah
18:27 <@ben> last pid: 47359; load averages:
28.51, 20.60, 9.57 up 11+00:33:58 18:23:52

Re:Watching a live slashdotting

[Twid]

omg get on the LOLLERCOASTER!!!!!!!!11eleven

We don't talk like that in real life. Well, ok, sometimes.

Re:Watching a live slashdotting

[Toast]

FWIW the reason the box died so quickly was due to gallery and uberperformanceful PHP. Once he got the images on a static page apache happily served up 40mbps. We have a NetScreen firewall in front of the box and it hasn't even blinked yet. 3% CPU usage and less than 1% of the sessions used. Is this the best slashdot has to offer? :(

Raising Hell

[karniv0re]

How long before the FreeBSD Hell's Angels start a war with the Linux Banditos?

Re:Raising Hell

[Kurt Russell]

I owned a 77' Kz1000, that bike ran like a raped ape! I got drunk and traded it for a harley sportster. What a major mistake, that bike was a pile of dung. The Banditos out of Corpus Christi, Texas did me a favor by stealing that pile. I think we sould cut the guy a break he's a biker and a nerd.

Nerds tinker it's what we do. :-)

Re:Just for fun or did he have a reason?

[Nasarius]

The site is Slashdotted, so I can't see what he says. But one potential use is GPS mapping.

Re:really, what is the point of this

[rasz]

>kldload bktr, this loads the Brooktree driver that the PCI capture card uses

well, guess what that CAPTURE CARD is doing in his motorcycle .. mm maybe its swimming ? or perhaps making sandwiches ? ... :/

Start Up

[davidmandle]

What happens if the computer is on while he starts his bike? When a car starts, the radio goes silent while the engine cranks over. What happens to the powersupoply to the computeR?

Re:Deceptive Headline

[endx7]

I understand that it's knit-picky, but sometimes slashdot headlines sound really silly.

nitpicky.

Re:Deceptive Headline

[lazuli42]

You owe me $5 worth of karma for the beautiful setup.

Wait...

[dysprosia]

Does this mean FreeBSD beat NetBSD to a motorcycle port? "Of course it runs NetBSD...except if it's a motorcycle"?

This has been tried with MacOS X.

[UncHellMatt]

Unfortunately whenever they'd start the motorcycle it would bounce uncontrollably.

Re:really, what is the point of this

[aauu]

Did you see the reference to the camera and the brooktree driver. He is capturing video while he rides. This seems to be an extremely ornate solution to the need for a camcorder mounted on the bike. On the other hand a camcorder wouldn't be on the front page of /. like a UNIX implementation. It is possible for him to upload the video via wireless when he finds a hotspot so perhaps this is more functional than a camcorder in that respect.

Here's a Copy 'n Paste:

[karniv0re]

I grabbed it seconds before it went down. Here's a copy 'n paste of the technical specs for the computer:

Technical:
Wait you said it ran UNIX, what exactly did you mean?!
The PC itself runs FreeBSD 5.2.1, the best operating system in the world, let the flames begin.
Custom modifications made to it:
/etc/rc: Added fsck -y before mount/check filesystem line. This ensures no 'unable to fsck press enter' problems.
/etc/fstab: Added 'sync' option to / FS. Causes all writes to be unbuffered. Helps prevent video loss from a power failure.
/etc/rc.local: Contains two lines: kldload bktr, this loads the Brooktree driver that the PCI capture card uses
streamer -o mjpeg.avi -f mjpeg -i Television -t 3:00:00, this program is part of XawTV and is what records the video off the camera/capture card to disk
More info on the Brooktree driver which comes installed by default.

Parts:
Shuttle SV24 Flex-ATX motherboard
256MB RAM
1Ghz P3 Coppermine CPU
PW-200 DC PSU
ITPS voltage regulator/ignition integrator 40GB HD
ATX extender cable
Brooktree based capture card(I believe this one was made by AverMedia, didn't come with docs)
Sun Camera
The Capture card and Camera came from the best surplus store known to man WeirdStuff. If you live in the Bay Area, they are a great place to visit.
Extra Bright LEDs for checking HD and Power status, in the sun.
Jumper connectors to plug cat5 cable into reset button/hddled/pwled on motherboard
I buy all my electronics parts from the coolest parts store in the world HSC

Cables:
Long RCA for camera
Long cat5, runs LED and reset button leads up to dash
Cat5 for ethernet to download video
Garmin GPS V cable, to log GPS routes on the PC
ATX extender cable, needed to put the DC PSU somewhere other than directly attached to the board

why would i want a subject?

[compwizrd]

guess you have to be a member of the wheel group to mount it.

bad analogy

[Douglas Simmons]

So you think this isn't powered by FreeBSD, or at least that to say so would be balderdash. But do you remember how back in the day at the bottom of websites there were all those Powered by Apache/BSD/(whatever) logos?

By the logic you're using, those websites weren't powered by Apache, they were powered by the Generel Electric coal power plant a few miles away. So nit-pick this, buddy. Parenthetically, I'd consider laying off the thesaurus... Balderdash... who says that.

BTW, someone link a Fahrenheit 9/11 .torrent please.

FreeBSD - Born to be Wild

[bXTr]

Getcha kernel runnin
Head out on the highway
Hackin for adventure
and whatever comes our way

BORN TO BE WILD!

Re:FreeBSD - Born to be Wild

[Anonymous Coward]

So close.

Everyone knows it's "Bourne to vee eye".

That's a shame...

[Nimrangul]

You know it's a shame they used a Motorcycle. You see, it's official now; Motortrend confirms it, Motorcycles are dying.

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered cyclist community when Kawasaki Motors Corp confirmed the motorcycle marketshare has dropped yet again, now down to less than 18 percent of Americans owning a motorcycle. Coming on the heels of a recent Motortrend survey which plainly states that motorcycles have lost marketshare, this news serves to confirm what we've known all along. Cycling is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent frontal impact test.

You don't need to be David Hasselhoff to talk about motocycling's future. The piss is on the snow: cycling faces a dark future. There won't infact be any future at all for cyclists because the industry is dying. Things are looking very bad for cycling. As many of us are already aware, motorcycles continue to lose market share. Red ink flows like a moon cycle.

Harley-Davidson is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of the Easy Rider generation. The sudden and unpleasent departures of long time Harley users Ricky L. Phillips and Gerald Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Motorcycling is dying.

... Ok, I'll stop now.

Re:That's a shame...

[Nimrangul]

Supposed to be a joke, for you see whenever there is a post about any BSD there are dozens of "BSD is dying" posts.

I thought I would mock the people that post them by making one of my own.

The part that should have made it relatively obviously a joke was my David Hasselhoff and piss in the snow parts, not to mention there being a couple of the BSD trolls already made.

Re:Man attaches computer to an object. Wow.

[Inthewire]

Don't try to patent it.
I've got video of prior art.

Posting this on the web shows...

[DieByWire]

that he's not mature enough to be ashamed of his driving. Flame me if you've ridden for 20 years accident free.

Re:Posting this on the web shows...

[lp-habu]

Flame me if you've ridden for 20 years accident free.

Anyone who has done anything for 20 years accident free has had a mortifyingly dull existence.

Connecting to the ECU

[carcosa30]

This would be totally fatuous were it not for the plans he mentioned of hooking the computer up to the bike's engine control CPU. I don't know enough about that sort of thing to know if there's any point to it. Possibly overclocking your engine to a dangerous degree when you need to go very fast, but why...?

Pretty neat nonetheless. Computer controlled neon lights, et cetera...?

Re:Connecting to the ECU

[catch23]

This is nothing too new. You can get a PowerCommander device that does this for more of the newer fuel-injected bikes (like my 2003 yamaha r6)

You can put a setting on the power commander to make flames come out of your exhaust if you really wanted to, but why go through the trouble? most people get the power commander so that the power output is more linear since some bikes only reach their full power band around the 10,000 rpm range which is much less used in normal street usage. Manufacturers build the bike for track usage, and usually don't keep in mind that 80% of the bikes are never going to be on the track.

I'm working on something similar

[Chairboy]

I'm in the planning phases of doing something like this with my Bandit 1200.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t =2 7133

For the interface, I plan to fabricate a fighter plane style MFD to replace my gauges, and also do the video logging that he does, except using a camera built into the fairing. I've done video on bikes before, and vibration is a big problem, so among other things, I'm hoping to find or adapt some video stabilization code.

I've already got a computer in my car, the only things I'm waiting for before I start buying is:
1. Nano-ITX Epia motherboard (4.7" squared)
2. An LCD screen that's daylight readable and affordable.

For power supply, I'll use an Opus 90 (this guy should have used the Opus 150, it has a shutdown controller built in) like the one in my car.

Bikeshed?

[Brandybuck]

But what color is the bikeshed?

The website is back up - the videos are shocking

[klasikahl]

Watch the gas->home video and go about 1/3rd through it, and watch this guy pass on the dotted white lines while driving on the freeway with cars on either side of him. He weaves right in between cars with 1 foot of clearance on each side at speeds close to 60-70mph... This guy is nuts!!!

I wouldn't post those videos if I were him

[Yonder Way]

This guy epitomizes an inconsiderate motorcycle rider. He's cutting people off, running red lights, passing people on the inside during a turn. Riders like this make it that much harder for responsible riders to get along with the cars on the road.

Re:I wouldn't post those videos if I were him

[Polo]

Now you got me curious, and I watched all the videos.

I just didn't see it the way you did. He didn't seem to be speeding, he didn't run any red lights (although I might have seen a pause on red), and as for passing people -- "lane sharing" is legal in california. It's pretty much accepted that motorcyles pass cars on the freeway and pull up to the front of intersections. I expect to someone from another state it would be something to get used to.

Re:I wouldn't post those videos if I were him

[edinho]

You can be totally legal, or arguably legal, and can still ride like an ass. This guy rides like an ass.

Overtaking in a turn, into a parking lot with people walking around, maybe grabbing a prime parking spot. Lane splitting and squeezing just to get ahead of a queue that is three vehicle deep. These actions tend to annoy cagers. I am a daily motorcycle rider, and I would have sighed and shook my head if I had seen any rider doing that. He does no one no favor.

Cheers,
e.

The hard drive will break

[vegetasaiyajin]

He should change the hard drive for a flash memory based drive. The vibration and outdoors ambient will break it. The same applies to the CPU fan. He should go with a low power CPU that can be cooled with only a heatsink.

Re:The hard drive will break

[Taurim]

There is not a lot of vibrations on an inline 4 cylinders like this Kawasaki.

If it were a Harley, he should not only use a solid state drive but he should also glue the CPU to the socket :-)

Re:chronicling bad riding habits

[Emperor Tiberius]

His driving is pretty bad, he almost hit that one Mercedes, only to cut another vehicle off. Although, he could just be doing a few stunts for the camera.

a lot of states that's 100% legal (on a bike)

[caveat]

"lane splitting" is legal in quite a few states (no, i'm not going to check...i do know it's ok in NY, it'd be insanity to ride the LIE otherwise). it's usually pretty safe to split two cars side by side, since the drivers won't go swerving at each other; trying to zigzag through a passing situation is much stupider, i knew a kid who got pasted on the LIE when the guy in the left lane cut right (in front of the other car) a little earlier than he was expecting...i guess the fall didn't hurt him that badly, but the bumper-to-bumper traffic going 45, well, that was a different story...

So, this would be a...

[mpthompson]

Unixycle?

Ouch! There goes my karma...

So it's ethanol based then?

[SuperKendall]

After all, it's powered by kernels...

There's a name for guys like this...

[tokabola]

When I was a Military Police we had a name for guys who rode like this. We called them STATISTICS.

As in "87% of all motorcycle fatalities are caused by reckless riding" or " So far this year we've scraped 14 motorcyclists off a bumper"

Re:There's a name for guys like this...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish more people knew about these stats. This guy rides like he's going to die, but mostly it's absent minded car drivers and bikers who don't leave themselves an "out"

In this area (Northern CA) I see it all. Women on cellphones doing makeup while doing 90 on the freeway. Guys reading the paper, shaving and drinking lattes.

I'm from the UK originally (8 years ago) and I'm disgusted by the level of driving skills here. Based on skill the speed limit should be 10mph on the freeways.

If I were in charge I'd make some changes, here's my 10 points.

1. Ban the phones, you SHALL use a handsfree set. $1000 penalty and points and have your phone disconnected. Thou shalt learn !

2. Stiffer driving tests. If you're warm blooded and can make it to the DMV you've already passed here in CA. Make sure they really can control a car.

3. Recurring 5 yearly tests, make sure they've retained what they've supposedly learnt. Test has minimal cost, no excuse there.

4. Don't give kids cars or bikes, make em go on courses and prove they are safe to be out before letting them loose.

5. Don't give people big bikes, build em up gradually through smaller bikes before giving the liceneses for larger capacity bikes.

6.If you don't have insurance, you're getting suspended for two years. 50% of california drivers don't have insurance, this sucks because it means I have to carry uninsured motorist insurance of my own. Why isn't the law enforced ? $3000 fine. If you can't pay your wages are garnished and your car used as (part) payment of the fine. If you are caught again (see 7) then you go to jail for 6 months.

7. Random stops, yes, random. If you're not drunk, on drugs and have insurance what are you worried about ?

8. Variable speed limits. Slow the traffic in peak times (advise people to stay in lane) and speed it up when it's quiet. Speeding during peak times gets you a fine of $1000

9. Have an regular state sponsored vehicle check every year. This would include a brake check, tire check and suspension check. I'm amazed how many people have bald tires and the back wheels are bouncing off the road on the freeway. Car taken off road if not road worthy. Cars on the road in bad condition can be impounded, max fine $3000. Educate the dumb about car condition.

10. Red Light cameras, lots of them, until it gets through to people that red means stop on your side, it also means it's green on the other side, meaning go... I see too many mid intersection crashes just because someone decided they could "make it"
Max fine $3000, If it's more than 2 seconds red, your car is taken away from you too.

Ok, I said 10, but here's 11.

11. Get rid of the commuter lane. It doesn't work. Never saw the sense in shutting down a lane during peak hours. It seems no-one cares about it here anyway.
I know it's supposed to encourage ride sharing, but it has failed. Get over it.
It also creates a hazzard. When traffic is stopped in the other 3 lanes and the commuter lane is moving at 80mph, I consider this unsafe. People pull out. I also see that all the time.

Re:There's a name for guys like this...

[tokabola]

The 87% figure was specific to Ft. Carson at the time (it's in Colorado Springs, Dad Driving Capitol of the World) and most of those accidents were partly the cars fault too. The fourteen is what I remember, vaguely, meant to make my point, not be definitive.
As an MP (and later a cab driver) I drove a lot (ussually 8 to 12 hours/day) for ten years, in US, Korea, and Germany. I agree on a lot of points but think the fines are excessive for first offenses. Flat out opposed to random stops, Police abuse their autority enough as it is, I should know.
Variable speed laws are a Bad Idea, as many accidents are caused by difference in speed as are by difference of direction, and Some people will always "fudge" the clock, same as they "fudge" red lights.
Most states aslready have a "two hands on the wheel", it's just not enforced. Neither is the "slower traffic keep right" law.
All for the vehicle inspections. I've known people who drove for months with broken power steering or only emergency brakes.
And yes, it's far to easy to get a liscense in this country.

Re:The website is back up - the videos are shockin

[jm92956n]

Lane splitting at 60mph is nothing; I've done it on my motorcycle at higher speeds.

There were two videos floating around the web at one point that would amaze you if you think this guy is dangerous. One was taken by a guy who owned a Ferrari F50 (their last generation supercar). He approached speeds close to 200mph on public roads. The other was of a guy on a motorcycle who drove the outer loop around Paris in 18 minutes. He passed trucks like they were standing still. Rumor has it he died on a subsequent attempt.

I'm unable to find a link to either at the moment. Maybe someone else has one?

Re:We all know that motorcyles are dangerous...

[richie2000]

...they have a higher fatality rate than other vehicles.

I know you were making a NetCraft/BSD dying joke, but fact of the matter is that motorcyclists have almost the exact same fatality rate as cagers (in Sweden). The trend has gone from approximately 25 deaths per 1000 motorcyclists 20 years ago to 5-6 deaths per 1000 motorcyclists now and those are the same numbers as for cars.

Yes, I realize that the numbers for the US are drastically different (both are higher), but still. It goes to show that it does not have to be inherently more dangerous to ride a bike than drive a car.

Incidentally, the deaths for bikers show a much larger ratio of drunk rider/stolen bike than for cars, meaning that if you stay sober and on your own bike, you're actually safer than in a car - statistically speaking.

Cant believe Slashdotters are skipping THIS

[Provocateur]

just because it's BSD.

You know what this means? That our motorcyclist has to drive cross country, fighting crime and solving mysteries with the aid of his deck. And for continuing adventures for one season, he has to pursue the M$ Bus of Mi$information, going by tips from strangers about bus sightings. Can anyone here say, Hassellhoff?

DARPA Challenge

[Performaman]

As I remember, one of the contestants for the DARPA challenge was/is a motorcycle/dirt bike with a dual Athalon-64 driving it.
All this guy needs now is Kismet and a wireless card.

Re:no

[potat0man]

http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/answers.html

It's not a link to the law. But chp.ca.gov is pretty close ;). I wonder if you could reference this if you were taken to court for it...