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Linux Based CarPC
Uber-Review writes "If you have been looking for a Linux based car PC. One man has made this a reality and documented putting together a Linux based car PC. Some of the features of this on board car PC is it can automatically sniff and record locations of wireless access points and plot them with GPS. You can watch a movie, browse the internet, get weather forecasts and stream Direct TV from your house right to your car. For an added bonus, you can remote start the car, and connect to it from inside the house and use SSH in, and transfer files without even getting off the couch."
For the first remote exploit that makes your car drive off the road.
I love it and I'm not sure why. I can barely drive, talk on my cell and check my Blackberry email without driving into the river. Now I have to try and not surf the web? Not a good idea.
Sorry, officer, I ran the red-light because my CD player segfaulted at the same time I was pressing on the brakes. :P
Whatever happened to focusing on the road when driving? I would be curious to know what statistics are like for collisions in vehicles with lots of advanced toys. If you're playing with the GPS / WiFi sniffer / $random_electronic_car_toy your attention is off the road, which is dangerous...
It seems we're putting more and more neat features and displays into the vehicles, but how carefully are we considering how it affects the behaviour of the drivers?
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I have planned to build one of these for a long time, but everytime I start to price components I realize it's not worth the money and time it would take me.
What I really want is a video server for DVD movies for the kid's tv in the back seat. I mean the tv/vcr combo thats there now is great... until the tape ends and needs rewinding. Not to mention that VHS tapes are so bulky that we only keep 5 or so in there.
Give me a video server that fits into the opening in my minivan and I'll be as happy as a fly on s#!t on the next road trip!
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
I'd install Gentoo on my car, but it doesn't sit in the garage for more than 10 hours at a time so the compiling would never get done.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
Does it run on Diesel?
If enithin kan gow rong it whil. (Murfey)
I've been working on this for a couple months now. Though I used a laptop mounted in a docking station bolted to the top of the trunk using a VCR bracket.
Outside of the lilliput 8" touchscreen, most of it has been pretty cheap. The laptop was a Dell CPTv I had. Slow but fast enough. I got a docking station,dvd, dc adapter and some more memory for around $150.
I use a lilliput 8" touchscreen molded into the double din radio slot. Dumped my head unit totally. Put a small Sirius Skymate radio and embedded it into the dash. The Starmate goes to the laptop which goes to the amp.
I found some Hitachi Endurastar automotive 2.5 HDD s on ebay for about $60 shipped a piece. Good deal. A little slow but I got them working at zero degrees.
For input eventually I'll finish my indash keyboard, (A hacked up Traveler PS3100), but now I'm using a Dreamgear mini usb keyboard made for the PS2. I hacked off the cord and replaced it with a retractable usb cord.
Mostly everything has been pretty easy as far as setting things up, but bluetooth connectivity with a sprint phone has been problematic. As this is my first linux install on the laptop, (and more multimedia than I've set up in the past), I was suprised how easy it's been going.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Ive been watching this stuff for over 4 years now and everyone can install the hardware nice but their interface sucks eggs. the closest thing I have seen is the 1/2 finished pycar project. a CAR Pc needs a real easy to use and simplified user interface to make it easy and SAFE to use on the road. most of the functions need to be able to run in the background while you do other things and someone needs to get off their arse and make a REAL vector based mapping/ navigation system. Linux has some psudeo gps moving map displays but absolutely NO navigation apps. (sorry but unless it gives me turn by turn showing the road route like the $49.00 windows delorme apps or the super old AutoPC car stereo from 1998 then its not navigation.
honestly installing the hardware and fabricating the faceplates in the car is the easy part. getting a bunch of people together to make a useable and safe UI for a car system is not.
dashwerks dashpc is close (although still 1/2 way as the interface is really klunky and not safe to operate at 80mph in 4 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic.... my pioneer double din navigation/dvd/cd/mp3 player is...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If his server crashes, he could be killed!
That was funny, but it also points out something all too true. Computers in cars are at best useless unless they provide something to help you to drive. I can see this system being good for the passenger, but what about the killer app for the DRIVER? I mean so far the best this thing can do is keep the kids in the back seat quiet, and a few other things that can often distract as much as they assist.
I think about the only killer app in a car would be something voice activated, and provide roughly the same services as a computer abord one of those Star Trek shuttles. I mean, how hard would it be in this day and age to make something that could respond verbally to "Computer: Where is the nearest grocery store?"
Until it gets to the point where a computer can actually help me drive effectively, I do NOT want one in my car.
Bork!
I have something similier in my car; an older 600mhz dell laptop connected to a power inverter in the seat and a Garmin handheld GPS. I have an 802.11b Orinoco card with a 5dbi mag-mount antenna connected to a pigtail to the card, and another 803.11b/g card with internal antenna. This setup can do just about everything the setup in the article has, with the exception of the live TV (though I can stream mpg video over the wireless lan), the cell phone interface (I have Sprint... ugh), and my system is not connected to my car stereo (though, in a pinch, I can burn a CD-R with MP3s and throw it in the car player).
The main difference though, between his setup and mine is, mine looks like garbage. When it's setup the passenger seat has the laptop (making it unusable) and there are wires running everywhere. To me, that's what makes this guys setup so friggin' cool. When this guy goes out on a date, he doesn't have to spend 20 minutes packing everything up and storing it in the trunk (because, believe it or not, most girls are not impressed by a car full of lose computer equipment and wires running everywhere).
I think when someone gets around to making custom kits for various vehicles for mobile computer installation--that blend in with the interior of the car like this guy's setup does--they'll do pretty well. While I wouldn't really care for streaming video (how am I supposed to watch TV while I'm driving?), I would like to see systems that made it easy for the car computer to connect to your wireless network, and from your desktop computer copy whichever mp3s (or OGG or whatever) you felt like having in your car's library.
I could imagine going over to a friends house, and him asking me "Have you heard XYZ's new album?" "No.. any good?" "It's great. Here, I'll burn you a copy" "Don't bother. I noticed you don't have WEP running on your wireless, so my car has probably already negotiated a connection and is on your LAN." (clicks on 'my network', and my shared folder configured through samba shows up) "There it is. Just drag and drop the music files into there".
Again, this all could be done using existing technology. The only hurdles are getting the dang thing configured for what you want it to do, and getting it installed into your car so it looks nice.
The Internet is generally stupid