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."

Comments

Something new?

[erick99]

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?

Re:What about TRON?

[belmolis]

One factor may be that TRON is basically a real-time embedded OS, whereas the applications for which automotive Linux is intended are not subject to real-time constraints. I don't know TRON very well, but it is likely easier to write code for a non real-time OS than for TRON. Another factor may have to do with internationalizing textual interfaces. Linux supports Unicode. The last I knew, TRON used only its own competing encoding and did not support Unicode. (I know that TRON fans consider the TRON encoding superior. Even if they are right, Unicode has received much more support outside of Japan so Unicode is probably a better bet for the automotive market.) A non-technical factor may be that TRON is Japanese. There may be a bit of the NIH syndrome at work.

Re:Awesome

[Richard Dick Head]

Well I don't know about Quake, but running a racer game with The Kernel reading your steering wheel and pedal movements, and outputing scenery to some flat panels pasted on your windows would be WAY cool. Then just so you don't have to take em off, use pwnboard cameras to give you a 360 FOV through the front.

Can you say Penguin Power bumper sticker? :D

Re:Strange article

[aggieben]

This area happens to be within the scope of my research, and I think it would be next to impossible to go overboard with the hardware.

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

Overkill? If anything, the PPC 603e is way undershooting what I think could/should be appropriate for automotive computing. Why not a 3GHz Pentium? I admit I don't know the numbers in terms of converting electrical consumption to gallons/mile, but I imagine it's fairly negligible, especially when compared to the requirements for air conditioning.

And as far as USB ports go...the more the merrier! Diagnostic devices could use them, MP3 players and other portable storage devices could be used, or even a laptop.

...but this doesn't need to be full powered.

I can think of several applications where having a "full-powered" computer in a car would be useful, not least of which is if you are on an automotive network (which doesn't really exist yet) and the environment requires high-grade encryption or other measures to provide the appropriate security. If the automotive network is P2P, lots of resources might be needed to make it work well.

For things going on *today*, maybe not much is needed, but why not provide more than what's needed so that people don't have to retrofit cars with more powerful computing hardware because the manufacturer only gave them a PPC 603e?