Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Rise of Linux In In-Vehicle Infotainment

Posted by Unknown on from the open-source-oops-hit-a-deer dept.

DeviceGuru writes "The 2014 Toyota Lexus IS reportedly will be the second major automobile to offer in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems based on Linux, following last year's introduction of the Debian-based Cadillac User Experience (CUE) IVI system, which now appears in Cadillac's XTS and SRX models. Cadillac's CUE IVI implementation was developed by GENIVI Alliance members MontaVista and Bosch and uses similar code, but is not listed as GENIVI compliant. Meanwhile, ABI Research projects that Linux will grow to 20 percent IVI market share by 2018, behind Microsoft and market leader QNX."

15 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Flashable? by XanC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The big question: will I be able to put something else on there? Like what OpenWRT did for routers?

    1. Re:Flashable? by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I recently bought a new car for the first time. I was PISSED i couldn't get the GPS center console without upgrading to another trim level with a bunch of shitty ground effects, aluminum rims and a spoiler. I even asked about just upgrading after the sale and the dealer was all 'different harnesses, change this blah blah blah."

      --
      Good-bye
    2. Re:Flashable? by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I recently had the same experience, made worse by my buying a new old stock car. The higher trim level meant getting a brand new one and a much worse deal. Since they were motivated to sell the old stock more.

      Buying cars sucks and dealers are the problem. I want to just be able to order one built exactly the way I want from the oem and have it shipped to my house. No need to keep but a single car local to me for test drives.

    3. Re:Flashable? by aitikin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, but that's what's brought the cost down. Just ask Mulally about it. Unfortunately I cannot find my source on this right now, but I recall an article on this exact topic from a business magazine. In it, Mulally's mother called him nearly crying over the fact that she couldn't decide on a Lincoln that she wanted. There were simply too many options to the point that it truly overwhelmed her.

      They then proceeded to redesign nearly every car they make to be built off of the same basic chassis. This allowed them to mass produce them, more inexpensively, making it more inexpensive to you, the end user, while still allowing them to improve the overall quality of their products. They then made it so there weren't over 100 different options of the same car, not counting paint even, making it so that there was a good chance that the car would be available at your local dealer, which further drove the price down, allowing more mass production (which is what Ford has always been known for).

      Furthermore, most of the time, people who want the GPS center console, want to have that premium leather seating, those aluminum rims that you don't want, the spoiler, and the floor lighting, or at least some combination of more than just 3 of them. Getting just the one, probably less expensive than all 5, but getting 3 of them under the old system would likely get you to the same price point or damned near it.

      Of course, you're here at Slashdot, which means that you think everything should be tweakable and customizable to the extreme, so why not do that on your own? You bought it, so just make it happen. I'm sure that someone out there has done something similar and will give you a fairly straightforward guide. I didn't even get off the lot before I replaced the horn in my hybrid (went from a "meep meep" to a "honk honk").

      For example, a quick Crutchfield search found me 20, in-dash GPS solutions for my 2011 Honda Insight (that does not have Nav built in already). Of course, by the time I will feel the need for an in-dash GPS, I'll probably be buying my next car anyway.

      --
      "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
    4. Re:Flashable? by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IM not blind to the realities of the car market. I grew up in Detroit and worked for Kelley Blue Book in CA. All that said, i wasnt aware of the finer details of trim packages until i went to buy. I was a bit shocked is all.

      I do disagree that GPS (a navigation tool) should be lumped in with leather seats, fancy rims etc. Its seems like its a pretty obvious addon that every car should have a cheap option for. THAT is what bothered me the most, i couldnt get a practical navigation tool without buying a ton of fluff at inordinate expense.

      --
      Good-bye
  2. Obligatory... by QRDeNameland · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is this the Year of Linux on the Dashboard?

    --
    Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
  3. Re:If you need in vehicle infotainment... by alen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    try driving for more than 30 minutes with two smallish kids in the car

  4. Re:QNX FTW by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

    So use the correct scheduler for your workload. Linux has more than one. There are even realtime modules you can use.

  5. Mercedez-Benz S Class w/LGPL by sofakingon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I went for a test-drive of a pre-production 2014 S Class last week, and to my surprise, the owner's manual came with a loose copy of the LGPL -- in English, no less (everything else was in German.)

  6. Re:If you need in vehicle infotainment... by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 3, Funny

    try driving for more than 30 minutes with two smallish kids in the car

    Just let them out at the next gas station.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
  7. I can see it now by DougOtto · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sorry the current audio track requires unresolved denpendancy: lib.somedamnthing.6.4.29a.so

    --
    Solving Unix problems since 1989...
  8. My Nexus 7 works just fine for that by erroneus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With a clever mount and pogo dock, my Nexus 7 loaded with music, GPS software and OBD2 software are all I need in the car. It's effective and inexpensive. Also, when tethered to my Nexus 4, I get internet too if I need it. All these other in-car things are ridiculously underpowered and over-priced. I hope everyone begins to wake up to the gouging car makers put over on consumers. (Seriously, is a Lexus THAT much better than a Toyota? They use mostly all the same parts!!!)

  9. Hidden features? by SwedishCoward · · Score: 4, Funny

    - Regexp search for radio stations
    - Job commute as a cron job
    - vi as default editor

  10. Re:If you need in vehicle infotainment... by AmazingRuss · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you're lucky, you can get good money for them at a truck stop.

  11. It's not Debian based by tap · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's custom. I should know, as it's largely designed by me. I worked for Delphi who was the OEM that made the radios for GM. They didn't have any Linux experience, so I was hired for this project. They had lots of talented engineers who experience with VxWorks, QNX, uITRON, etc., but not POSIX/Linux. So I got them up to speed on Linux, helped designed the base OS, and made the Linux system work. I was told the Linux based software generated around $2 billion in sales. Then I got laid off.

    It's based on Freescale's LTIB, which I also worked on when I worked for them. But, it's highly customized. Freescale hasn't really maintained LTIB for some time, despite continuing to use it as the base for their BSPs. Something like Debian is much too bloated for what the radios are expected to work it. The same system is used for the simpler non-touch radios in other GM vehicles. It's an ARM9 based iMX25, running at I think 380 MHz, with 32 MB of RAM. The framebuffer comes out of the RAM too. I managed to get it to boot from power on (or rather CAN bus wakeup pulse) through u-boot, through the kernel startup, to system startup and daemons running and have userspace application code start in around 250 ms. Getting the backup camera working in <1 second is an important requirement. The ARM9 as a VIVT cache, which forces a cache flush on each context switch, making it quite slow. If one used udev like a normal Linux distro, it takes something like 3 seconds just for udev to populate /dev on system startup. So obviously udev is out.

    The radios are not designed to let you easily root or put different software on. However, stopping someone who has physical access to the radio from hacking it wasn't a very high priority. By default LTIB gives you a blank password root account and a telnet daemon configured to allow root logins! I got rid of that and made it ssh only. I don't know if the final production firmware still has ssh running or not. The iMX53 processor used in the CUE system doesn't have secure boot like some other iMX processors. Freescale's iMX line is actually composed of multiple utterly different families of ARM based SoCs based on different IP. So you can easily hack it with a flash programmer.

    I don't know of any easter eggs.... GM isn't the kind of company that would look kindly on that. However, unless someone managed to fix it, you can lockup the DVD player with the "Justice League: Starcrossed" DVD a few minutes in. After the alien ship shoots at some jets. It's not the DVD player, but the video overlay on the iMX53 that has locked up.