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Linux Takes On Automotive Apps
loconet writes "Linux Devices has released an article about Metrowerks setting out to drive Linux further into the automotive telematics market by launching what it calls "Automotive Grade Linux," a version of Linux enhanced with non-traditional features to address the specific requirements of automotive telematics."
Kernel Panic: Your engine a splode!
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Your Corola has been rooted!
Now I can totally play Quake while I'm driving.
"Only 17 days left until we can leave hon, I'm just compiling starter.so"
I hadn't heard of Automotive Telematics before, nor did I know it was a $14 billion market and, even more surprising (to me), Microsoft has a version of CE that was released in 2002 and updated in 2003 that is specifically for that market. Well, you learn something new everyday within the hallowed halls of SlashDot. That said, I would think that Linux would be an ideal platform for this because it does meet the requirements for telematics as set forth in the article. I wonder how M$ will respond? Or, is it a big enough pie for everyone to have a slice?
http://www.busyweather.com/
How many car manufacturers are going to be putting some untested software into cars. Not only from a safety/reliability standpoint, but they also probably want to keep the locks closed on access to the software, and open source wouldn't work with this model.
Hope linux'd compete well against ms in this field and save us avoiding those microsoft cars' jokes from becoming a reality
More than half of words were buzzwords or acronyms.
Anyway, why exactly do you need a PowerPC 603e and two USB ports for..uh..diagnosing cars? Seems to me that the hardware is a bit overkill, and an embedded direct solution might function a little better by avoiding the overhead of simply running Linux. Don't get me wrong; Linux is great for full-powered machines, but this doesn't need to be full powered.
"UNIX
You get in the car and type grep store. You are given a list of 400 7-11's in your area and 50 grocery stores. After picking one and reaching speeds of 200 miles per hour en route, you arrive at the barber shop."
-- If Operating Systems Drove Your Car to the Store
Tweet, tweet.
It would be nice if they would start to use Linux in all machines where they wanted to write code with minimum overhead. I know people that have written large ammounts of code for everything from car computer systems to alarm clocks and its usually it some form of basic or C. Imagine if most of these products starting using a simple Linux system where you could reuse all kinds of crazy crap. You could be running toaster timers to clock your laps around a track in your car :D
Why try and do this with Linux when TRON is already the most widely used operating system for millions of devices? Or is it just the geek factor of knowing you're buying a car with a penguin inside?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
One step closer to cars driving instead of humans ...Insert geeky Matrix reference here...
"I am not a fanboy but I know that this is a market segment that relies heavily on reliable products and will spend untold millions if not billions just on testing alone."
You can thank trial lawyers for that.
This driver is not recognized... and it was the first time Linux crashed something.
QNX, which IIRC is based on SYSIV is used in many car computers.
" Your Corola has been rooted!"
You have to recompile your car to get the power windows to work.
You have to download binary drivers to get the advanced dash features to work.
RTFOM is necessary before starting the car.
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS6531324140.html
can it run Nethack?
... 5 minutes after turning on the car, it would rev to the max but it would run at only 40km/h, until you found out your car was exploited by some script kiddie.
But that would be because of the third party radio you're using.
Suse Linux:
You start kdestination and type the first few letters of the store name in the dialog box. A list of potential matching destinations pops up. You click on the one you want, and after clicking on the conformation, you arrive instantaneously at the store via the kwormhole daemon.
Linux
You align four used tires and hope one day other people will help you build the rest of the car to drive to the store.
You get your car home and wait 2 days for "emerge system" to finish.
Gentoo: when you receive the car, you have to push the "compile" button and wait two days to drive it.
Every time you change the oil you must do this again.
Contribute yours!
# apt-get upgrade spare-tire
...
the following packages will be REMOVED:
-donut spare tire
the following will be INSTALLED:
-full size spare tire
[downloading full-size-spare-tire]....[done]
Removing donut spare tire...
Installing full size spare tire...
# apt-get install power-locks
Package power-locks is part of package: power-group
# apt-get install power-group
$cat
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The press release keeps talking about their addition of real-time features added to Linux--RTAI, RTLinux, MontaVista, etc, not mentioned.
What are the development, licensing, etc, issues here?
Matt
At least you would not be put through a BSOD before you hit the windows shield.
The development package that they are offering it for appears to be the $5000 mobileGT Total5200 Unfortunately a bit-pricey for my homebuilt telematics project- I'll keep using the old laptop.
I'm waiting for a GPL purist to demand the drivers be freed.
read repeatedly until you get the joke
"This is almost support enough for why this software SHOULD be open. Much more exposure would ensure less error."
No it wouldn't. OSS isn't a magic bullet. To write safe software you have to have intimate hardware knowledge as well as software.
Open sourcing the 777's avionics software wouldn't help, because the majority know nothing about the 777, and avionics in general (domain knowledge), and the minority that does already work for Boeing.
Most likely MS will enter that world in about a year. They will want to somehow tie this back to their media center. I suspect that all these companies that are using MS will be wiped out in under a year due to this being a fairly new field (digital vs. analog).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I have been making my living writing software for various automotive applications from BCMs to instrument clusters for about 15 years. I currently do advanced r&d for a tier 1. A recent project was to evaluate and document the major OSes and their applications in the telematics realm. The findings were what we usually find in selecting supporting software. Different OSes work in different situations. There is no clear path and different scenarios require different solutions much like the PC application domain. Outside of telematics like an instrument cluster our OSes consist of a while loop and not much more. The requirements from the OEMs dictate that the resources for auto apps are pretty small in order to keep the costs down. If they can shave a penny from cost you can bet an engineering change is coming your way. For instance, the last BCM we did had 256k of rom, 12k of ram. This includes compliance to foreign regulations on the same module. Meaning headlamp and horn behavior will be different outside the U.S.
I think the upshot for Linux is that it is a solid low cost alternative that will become more attractive as the cost to manufacture a higher end chip that supports a real OS goes down. Most people don't realize that your modern automobile has about 17 to 20 different computer systems. They all run apps of some sort. It would seem like a logical step to eventually combine some of these systems and control them with a real OS.
We'll see.