Retractable LCD screen in an XJ ????

[Purple]

Does anyone know/have one installed? I own a 98 and it does not look as if it will be able to open full cause of the Heater vents.... any pics? im looking at a sony 7" units...

 

[Purple]

bump

 

[Root Moose]

I'm going with the motorized unit that digitalww.com sells. It's a 16:9, 800x480 (native) resolution panasonic in a third party housing. Includes touch screen for ~$500USD (IIRC).

I haven't ordered the unit yet, still dealing with software/sound (ALSA is friggen' annoying).

HTH

r@m

 

[Root Moose]

Forgot to add, the digitalww unit is 1 DIN. I'm going to stick it where the factory CD player is now and will hack in some CF card slots into the remaining 0.5 DIN slot.

r@m

 

[Purple]

yeahhh, i just want to see how that thing is going to open up and stuff, if the angle will be ok to view it, because of the vents on top

 

[Bunookana]

na, just get a 5.6 lcd screen and take out one of your heater vents and put it right there, it is just the right size. You can't see it from the front and it doesn't block anything. I will get some pics for you here soon, if someone can post them for me.
Ben

 

[Root Moose]

Not sure that is a good idea in Ontario. -30 degrees makes you want all your heater vents working.

That being said, if you do the motorized device, you can put the display away during early morning start up, once the vehicle is warm enough to take off your gloves/mits and turn the blower down to "1", bring the display out.

If there was a display/touchscreen that fit the 1.5 DIN hole I'd go that route instead of this motorized device. I'm worried about it getting screwed up when bouncing around off-road.

r@m

 

[Go Go]

sorry to hijack thread, Anybody consider or see a monitor that would fit in the overhead console on the 97 up XJs between the sunglass holder and passenger overhead lights?

 

[casm]

I'm going with the motorized unit that digitalww.com sells. It's a 16:9, 800x480 (native) resolution panasonic in a third party housing. Includes touch screen for ~$500USD (IIRC).

Hey, Moose - whatcha working on? Just curious as I suspect we're tackling similar projects right now.

I haven't ordered the unit yet, still dealing with software/sound (ALSA is friggen' annoying).

OSS sucks too Under my list of annoyances in *nix, sound and printing are probably top of the pile. BTW, have you looked into JACK at all? I've been playing with it a little bit of late and although I'm still getting used to it, kinda like it - reminds me a lot of the server approach taken by BeOS to various components of the system.

 

[Root Moose]

Hey, Moose - whatcha working on? Just curious as I suspect we're tackling similar projects right now.

This is part of the direction where I am going:

Navigation Computer Update (moose.ca)

These screen shots are quite dated. I've modified some of the look and feelie stuff since then. For audio and such I'm using gqmpeg - it's heavily themeable as well so I can make it conform to what I want it to do.

The only part of the project which is keeping me from moving this from "proof of concept" to a working, installed prototype is the audio in Linux. ALSA is so poorly documented that trying to do anything with it is a major pain in the ass. Unfortunately I didn't do myself any favours by picking the Audigy 2 NX as my secondary sound device - it only recently reached a half decent level of support by ALSA.

OSS sucks too Under my list of annoyances in *nix, sound and printing are probably top of the pile. BTW, have you looked into JACK at all? I've been playing with it a little bit of late and although I'm still getting used to it, kinda like it - reminds me a lot of the server approach taken by BeOS to various components of the system.

I don't doubt that OSS sucks as well. Haven't looked at JACK directly, just seen references to it in various ALSA pages.

In retrospect I kinda wished I had waited longer before bying the mainboard for this project (VIA EPIA M10k-N). If I had my time over again I probably would have gone with a Mini Mac running OS X without Aqua (i.e. OS X with X-Window on top as the environment).

The project has complicated sound requirements. The onboard VIA sound is used by the system level bleeps and blops, the USB FM tuner has an analog output that goes into the VIA mainboard, the VIA line out goes into the Audigy, the Audigy drives my car amp(s). Still finallizing how to do the car level audio gear. I want to basically mimic the factory 4.0 sound but use the center channel driver on the Audigy to have the CB sound come up on the dash are only. This reads more complicated that it really is I suspect/hope.

We'll get there. I've got ALSA 1.0.9 installed outside of the kernel now, seems to be moving a little better.

r@m

 

[casm]

This is part of the direction where I am going:

Wow... Yours looks to be at a *way* more advanced stage than mine (which I have to admit I haven't really picked up much in a couple of months). You've actually got the UI and OBD stuff going; I'm still trying to tie stuff together with various scripts that poll output - and it's all running on an old Gateway P2/400 tower, which would seriously eat into cargo space if I just bolted it in

These screen shots are quite dated. I've modified some of the look and feelie stuff since then.

Yeah, but it looks great. Seriously, I like the layout a lot. What's the 'CON' button for? Console? And what's the underlying window manager, or are you just using your own app instead of one?

For audio and such I'm using gqmpeg - it's heavily themeable as well so I can make it conform to what I want it to do.

I was using xmms in commandline mode with the intention of writing a plugin to get the audio display to where I wanted it, but kinda got stalled on that. I like the gqmpeg idea, though. Out of curiosity, are you planning on doing on-board MP3 storage or reading from an external device? Also, you wouldn't happen to know of any mini-ITX motherboards with onboard AM/FM tuners by any chance, would you? Or even PCI tuners small enough to fit that form factor with a riser card?

The only part of the project which is keeping me from moving this from "proof of concept" to a working, installed prototype is the audio in Linux. ALSA is so poorly documented that trying to do anything with it is a major pain in the ass. Unfortunately I didn't do myself any favours by picking the Audigy 2 NX as my secondary sound device - it only recently reached a half decent level of support by ALSA.

It may not be great, but I figured on just using onboard AC97 - it'll do 5.1 and is probably good enough for non-mobile-audiophile applications, plus is supported well and comes on every freaking compact motherboard out there.

In retrospect I kinda wished I had waited longer before bying the mainboard for this project (VIA EPIA M10k-N). If I had my time over again I probably would have gone with a Mini Mac running OS X without Aqua (i.e. OS X with X-Window on top as the environment).

Interesting idea. Hm, that's making me rethink the mini-ITX route.

The project has complicated sound requirements. The onboard VIA sound is used by the system level bleeps and blops, the USB FM tuner has an analog output that goes into the VIA mainboard, the VIA line out goes into the Audigy, the Audigy drives my car amp(s).

OK, stupid question (and forgive me on this, since i'm not big into car stereo): why not just remove the Audigy from the equation altogether? Use the VIA's PC Speaker to do the system noises (just generate custom sounds for each event rather than the traditional PC beep, which should also allow you to mix over the playing audio) and send everything else out over the regular line out?

Still finallizing how to do the car level audio gear. I want to basically mimic the factory 4.0 sound but use the center channel driver on the Audigy to have the CB sound come up on the dash are only. This reads more complicated that it really is I suspect/hope.

Ooof. Yeah, the CB audio sounds tricky.

We'll get there. I've got ALSA 1.0.9 installed outside of the kernel now, seems to be moving a little better.

Sounds good; I look forward to seeing how it progresses. Hey, what's the underlying distribution? I'm using a very cut down Slackware on mine with the intention of going over to a kiosk-specific distro later (still undetermined), but am open to suggestions.

 

[Root Moose]

Yeah, but it looks great. Seriously, I like the layout a lot. What's the 'CON' button for? Console? And what's the underlying window manager, or are you just using your own app instead of one?

CON is console, correct.

I'm using fvwm as the underlying window manager. Small, fast, heavily themeable. The buttons on the left switch to different VCs which keeps me from having to write _real_ code.

I was using xmms in commandline mode with the intention of writing a plugin to get the audio display to where I wanted it, but kinda got stalled on that. I like the gqmpeg idea, though. Out of curiosity, are you planning on doing on-board MP3 storage or reading from an external device? Also, you wouldn't happen to know of any mini-ITX motherboards with onboard AM/FM tuners by any chance, would you? Or even PCI tuners small enough to fit that form factor with a riser card?

I looked at xmms at first. Can't remember why I decided not to use it. Probably the theming issue. Gqmpeg is heavily themeable (almost done) and it also deals with the FM tuning/playback. It also has a set of ipc command to make it do things so you can in theory control it through other apps (i.e. tool bar buttons in fvwm) but I'm not doing anything like that at this point.

MP3 on board. I've been prototyping on a 40GB 2.5" disk. Plenty of storage for the MP3s I intend to bring with me and the 50k topos from the Manitoba/Ontario border and all points east.

I originally wanted to stick the system on CF cards. When I started the project they were still pricey but I should be able to get the entire OS, enivronment, locale specific topos and a few albums on a two 1GB cards now. I'll have additional CD card slots somewhere in the dash area. I'm fairly certain automount can be configured to bring all of these devices into place reasonably seamlessly (fingers crossed).

To my knowledge there are no Mini-ITX boards with built in FM tuners. I went USB (D-Link DSB-R100). They are an EOL'ed product but there are plenty floating around on Ebay. That is where I got mine. I'm going to start casting about for a similar device for satellite radio eventually.

It may not be great, but I figured on just using onboard AC97 - it'll do 5.1 and is probably good enough for non-mobile-audiophile applications, plus is supported well and comes on every freaking compact motherboard out there.

That was my original plan. The problem became that with the VIA boards use the mic, line-in and line-out as your 5.1 analog outs when in 5.1 mode. The mainboard does have S/PDIF out but that means a new amp purchase for me and I'm not 100% certain whether the two can be used in tandem.

Interesting idea. Hm, that's making me rethink the mini-ITX route.

The only unknown is sound (once again).

The research the VIA hardware check out mini-itx.com, epiawiki.org, lin-itx.[com,org?], epiacenter.com, forums.viaarena.com.

The epiawiki in particular has some boiler plate install guides. They are dated but workable. The should give you some insight to the audio limitations of the boards (IIRC).

OK, stupid question (and forgive me on this, since i'm not big into car stereo): why not just remove the Audigy from the equation altogether? Use the VIA's PC Speaker to do the system noises (just generate custom sounds for each event rather than the traditional PC beep, which should also allow you to mix over the playing audio) and send everything else out over the regular line out?

Hey, no worries, I know close to zero about audio in general. Didn't nail down what 4.0, 5.1, 7.1 sound was in my mind until a few months ago.

If you pull out the audigy that means that you either lose a mic-in for 4.0 sound out on the mainboard or you have to run sp/dif. Don't forget that the FM tuner requires an analog speaker/line-in.

You could do it by controlling balance and fader in the amp itself but I'd rather have everything driven from the touchscreen interface on the PC. Also, not sure if the amp can be directly manipulated that way easily while blasting down the four lane at 130 km/h.

All this being said, if you can find a small PCI card that eliminates the dependence on the analog input, that would be the way to go I think. For us non-audiophiles I am certain that the VIA sound out is more than adequate for a noisy environment like the inside of a Jeep.

Sounds good; I look forward to seeing how it progresses. Hey, what's the underlying distribution? I'm using a very cut down Slackware on mine with the intention of going over to a kiosk-specific distro later (still undetermined), but am open to suggestions.

When I reach a milestone where I have everything in a more or less polished set of themes and such I plan to make the themes available on my website.

For distro I went with Gentoo installed from stage 1 (i.e. source code boot strap optimized with VIA EPIA compiler flags). The little VIA C3-2 on the M10k-N runs at 1GHz and is not terribly fast at that. It needs all the help it can get - there is a noticable difference running Gentoo compared to other distros. That being said, I haven't mucked around with Slack since the mid 1990s so I don't have a feel for it at all.

My "full" root disk install is about 630MB including X, audio tools, fvwm, gpsdrive, etc. This is with having the portage system remotely nfs mounted (Gentooism).

I suggest using whatever distro you are comfortable with and if performance becomes an issue deal with it just before you do your vehicle install.

r@m

 

[casm]

Moose, you've probably already seen this, but figured I'd throw it out there anyway: GrandAmp.

The guy seems to be focusing mainly on audio, but he's done some interesting integration with GPSDrive amongst other things. He also has a good breakdown of the system and software components.

 

[RichP]

I want to thank you two immensley, talk about solving a problem out of the blue that has been frustating me for several months and here I find it under a post that I have passed over several times as 'not of interest'... thankyou thankyou thankyou.... :kissyou: :kissyou: :kissyou:

 

[casm]

I want to thank you two immensley, talk about solving a problem out of the blue that has been frustating me for several months and here I find it under a post that I have passed over several times as 'not of interest'... thankyou thankyou thankyou.... :kissyou: :kissyou: :kissyou:

Heh, thanks This is something I've been playing with for a long time but had kind of lost interest in - Moose's post really put some wind back in my sails on it. Having seen how far along he's got with it, though, I think I'm going to wait for his first release before going ahead with mine again since I'd rather not reinvent the wheel.

BTW, Moose: one thing I had been looking at doing was ultimately making this a mini-distro with plugin capabilities. The idea was that there would be a basic feature set (MP3 player, AM/FM/TV tuner, GPS, 802.11) but precompiled binaries could be packaged a la pkgtool / dpkg / RPM and added as needed. An XML file would describe UI changes back to the screen parser, so everything could integrate back into the UI without any major changes to the OS itself; this XML file would also describe the locations of all installed / binary-created files in case later removal was necessary.

What prompted all this was a desire to run MAME on the in-dash unit, but not include it as part of the distribution for copyright reasons. Something about being able to have a quick game of Pengo while stuck in traffic seemed rather appealing

 

[Root Moose]

BTW, Moose: one thing I had been looking at doing was ultimately making this a mini-distro with plugin capabilities. The idea was that there would be a basic feature set (MP3 player, AM/FM/TV tuner, GPS, 802.11) but precompiled binaries could be packaged a la pkgtool / dpkg / RPM and added as needed. An XML file would describe UI changes back to the screen parser, so everything could integrate back into the UI without any major changes to the OS itself; this XML file would also describe the locations of all installed / binary-created files in case later removal was necessary.

These are the kinds of issues that made me go with separate applications, the fvwm window manger and Gentoo.

The window manager is transparent from the "modules" (applications). Because fvwm is so powerful it can be used to "tame" poorly behaved applications that want to pop up windows where ever they want. Also, it has a very rich configuration file so it can be made to look pretty much like anything.

Using completely separate apps lets you use the best tool for the job. The UNIX way of doing things.

Under Gentoo, provided you have access to bandwidth, adding an apllication is just a command line away. I understand that apt-get/yum works similarly.

I like the idea of a XML and/or m4 approach to the fvwm configuration. I may look into that once I've got the interface a little more formalized. I could see a single command line something like:

mkcfg --first=NAV:gpsdrive --second=AUD:gqmpeg --third=WiF:kismet --fourth=:clock:date --fifth=:temp-degreesC --sixth:logo:moose.gif --navbar:left:120px

or something like that.

There already is an m4 config file system for fvwm out there although I don't use it myself.

I'm really not big on having any form of TV/DVD system in the vehicle. Between legalities and distraction I think it is a bad idea. That being said, if someone wanted to use my method of displaying the apps to make that part of the config then all the more power to them.

If I had a more powerful machine with a second DVI out that could be routed to a screen for the kids in the back I'd consider it for my own setup.

For the up front console I am trying to keep it more practical/professional.

r@m

p.s. I forgot to add, using Gentoo makes this all very reproducible from the command line. If you look at the Gentoo installation hand book, it literally would be a matter of running a bunch of additional emerge commands once the system is up and running and doing you hardware/software config. One of the joys of portage is how reproducible precise system builds become.

 

[casm]

The window manager is transparent from the "modules" (applications). Because fvwm is so powerful it can be used to "tame" poorly behaved applications that want to pop up windows where ever they want. Also, it has a very rich configuration file so it can be made to look pretty much like anything.

Bullseye. My concerns weren't so much theming (a nice idea, but I dislike lack of consistency in UIs) as being able to force the applications into the spaces I wanted them in. I had been using Windowmaker in the mock-up stage mainly because I know it pretty well and can generally get it to do what I want, but it was pretty obvious even early on that it was of limited value for trying to overlay a UI on top of.

Under Gentoo, provided you have access to bandwidth, adding an apllication is just a command line away. I understand that apt-get/yum works similarly.

Pretty much, yep. The plan on this end had been to use Slackware's installpkg tool via a frontend for that and allow updates through either 802.11 or the DVD drive. Which leads me on to...

I like the idea of a XML and/or m4 approach to the fvwm configuration. I may look into that once I've got the interface a little more formalized.

Cool, hope it works out for ya. One thing I had wanted to do was add XML parsing to installpkg and removepkg so that things could be installed and removed by type rather than package name - basically making entire subsystems very modularly pluggable.

There already is an m4 config file system for fvwm out there although I don't use it myself.

I have to admit that I know very little of it myself either. I'm in the proces of trying to kiosk-ise my MAME cabinet a bit more, so suspect I may shortly be getting some experience with it.

I'm really not big on having any form of TV/DVD system in the vehicle. Between legalities and distraction I think it is a bad idea. That being said, if someone wanted to use my method of displaying the apps to make that part of the config then all the more power to them.

That's why I was so keen on doing everything as a pluggable subsystem. I'd like to be able to receive VHF TV audio at the least and use DVD-Rs for MP3 / map data storage (forgot to mention - was planning on running off of CF as well, so no HDDs to break), but as for actually playing a DVD or watching TV on it... Meh. Someone else can build it in if they really want it.

 

[Purple]

heh, whatever..... ANY PICS OF DVD SCREENS INSTALLED IN XJs? NO TOPIC STEALING, START YOUR OWN!

 

[Root Moose]

heh, whatever..... ANY PICS OF DVD SCREENS INSTALLED IN XJs? NO TOPIC STEALING, START YOUR OWN!

Damn, what side of the crypt did you wake up on?

Take a look at this, not installed in a vehicle but gives a better sense of scale and operation:

http://www.mp3car.com/products/MTSVO-SC/MTSVO-SC.AVI

In other news, I've "solved" all my ALSA issues (whoohoo!). Stereo analog line in from the FM Tuner and onboard VIA8325 is now being routed automagically to surround40 through the Audigy.

Time to buy some hardware.

r@m

 

[casm]

heh, whatever..... ANY PICS OF DVD SCREENS INSTALLED IN XJs? NO TOPIC STEALING, START YOUR OWN!

But hijacking is so much more *FUN*! Now, here's something I turned up on Google that may be of interest to you. And another.



BTW: Moose, glad to see it's progressing!