Why hello, folks. Been a while since my last post. Here's the scoop. Been spending a lot of time in the vehicle this summer. Big ol' van, definitely a shaggin' wagon. Since I'm not at my home pc as much as I used to be, I thought it would be cool to go portable and tear into the dash of the van, completely mod the interior of my vehicle. Of course this wouldn't stop at just at cosmetics, but it would look very futuristic...I'm looking at putting in a couple giant flatscreens, built right into the center console, and put in a dvd player, memorystick reader, and some other pretty visuals. Thing is, I want this sucker to be powerful AND customizable, but within the affordability of a pc not a laptop. I'll be running off of a 1600 watt power inverter, but will mod the computer and wire the power button into the vehicle's accessory so when I turn the van off, the computer will run through a shut-down, that way its not always on and draining the battery. Here's the problem. I don't want to have to wait for XPpro to load up every time I start the van. I want this sucker to load as fast as the os in a standalone dvd player. Reason I don't just install a tv and dvd is because I want to write some software to monitor not only pc stats but give a nice graphical interface for displaying my van's engine stats, that way I can get rid of the old-skool instrument panel and run a dual monitor, one for entertainment, one for engine ie: speedo, tach, temp and so forth. Searched around thinking perhaps Microsoft has a beta of Freestyle lying around on the net, but so far no luck. I've not played much with Linux yet but would be willing to give it a shot. I'd be willing to give anything a shot, as long as I can get it to support my hardware (still flexible as I haven't bought anything yet) and provided it'll run scripts so I can write my own pc and engine monitoring software. I'm sure somebody out there has come across something that would work. Of course I'll go into my bios and kill as much of the POST as possible, but I still don't want to have to wait even fifteen to twenty seconds for everything to load up...I want everything running and on display as quickly as possible. So there's the challenge. I'm probably asking for a Super OS that hasn't been written yet, but who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky and one of you will make my day! Let me know what you've come across. Perhaps one of you has even already done this! Tell us about it. Thanks!
freestyle isn't what you want and linux, well maybe. Try Windows XP Embedded, its perfectly suited to your needs.
Well I got something similar setup in my car. Not with all the fly instrumentation, but kinda similar. I got a puter in the boot of my car thats for playing mp3s, custom linux compile, with just the stuff I need, runs off an inverter connected to two car batteries. I build a little device that checks the state of the batteries, if its under 25% charge the machine shuts down. The batteries get charged by the engine (after the engine battery is charged of course). That way I dont need to shut down the machine and its always on. It needs to be on all the time so that I can wirelessly copy mp3's across
Can't say I've ever heard of XP embedded...I plan to google it to find out more. Anybody else know what its about? Cool on the setup in the trunk...are you running a monitor on it? How much power out of the inverter, and what gear does the "puter" boast?
I recall something about XP embeded, some modular version of XP they (they being the evil scum of the earth) were gonna put in electronics, like vending machines and stuff. Obviously these vending machines will be hooked to the net, and track everything people buy :/ They are just trying to follow in the path of the Open Source electronics implementations.
So does anybody know where I can get my hands on XP Embedded for cheap? Everyone seems to think its worth $9000 or something. Stupid.
Microsoft and cheap don't come in the same sentence, why not use linux or win and when you leave it a while everything goes to sleep, surely It doesn't take much power to keep a cpu alive, what about hibernation? It only takes about 20 seconds for my pc to come alive from Hibernation
Thought about it, but want to be as efficient as possible. And twenty seconds is a long time compared to a standalone dvd player....
Hmm true, but if you got a flash drive, and linux, it wouldnt take very long to boot, like 2 seconds, as the OS and everything stays loaded in RAM, the storage file system could power up after that (like 10 seconds or summing) no ideas on XP embedded.
I like how you think, Lazy. So much I tried KaZaA as soon as I'd figured out what Embedded was. Unfortunately the search returned fruitless. Anybody know where I could get my hands on a *ahem* shareware version that could, *ahem* work beyond the Microsoft demo? Tried Warez, but typically all I end up with is a lot of porno popups and no software when I hit warez sites. Not that we want to do anything *ahem* illegal or anything.
Well you could always try the IRC warez chans, if you hunt for long enough am sure you'll come across something. I dont believe in warez anywho, unless of course the company turns huge profits, so in this case its acceptable.
From the rules: So... No more talk of warez or piracy here otherwise this thread will be closed faster than you can say "mind the doors". Talk of this nature is unsuitable and we all know your views on censorship jaz but to be quite honest i don't care. The rules are there for a reason and they will be observed. </bmfh>
Surely discussing warez/piracy issues cant be that bad ? As long as people dont start providing instructions on how to do it. <cough>rK@NE</cough>
i don't like warez sites as there is 1% illegal software and 99% russian porn not that thats a consellation
the place i posted would help you with anything, theyre not a warez network. its just like dalnet. not a warez network.
Screw XP embedded. Give QNX or BeOS a try. I'm part of the openbeos development team, and we're progressing well, so the future is bright and cheerful, and right now, the existing version of BeOS that _is_ usable would easily handle your needs, on mediocre hardware. Check out http://www.bebits.com. You can download the "personal edition" for free, there are tons of places to get bootable personal edition cds as well. Cheers, David http://www.qnx.com for QNX. Here's a screenie of BeOS for ya.
