nanonymous.org's Tech Blog

nGhost2.0 RC1

2008-06-17T03:07:17Z

nGhost2.0 RC1 Released A feature complete build of nGhost has been rolled out. Lots of hard work in killing bugs has had the devs busy for a while now. This release marks that the end is near. nGhost introduces several new ideas into car entertainment. While similar applications "mask" the Operating System (usually windows), nGhost is a critical part as a Desktop. In addition to being a desktop, nGhost is also a server, acting as a hub for car statics information, GPS, Bluetooth, Devices, and media playback. This also enables nGhost to communicate with other instances of nGhost in other cars, sharing traffic information, and displaying it to the driver. Much of this is future-speak, but the foundation has been layed, and excitement is high to build on top of it. One notable thing mentioning is that nGhost now integrates well with icepanel. This enables the user to have a persistent set of controls regardless of what window he has open. All while maintaining touchscreen friendliness.

Icepanel has multi-screen capability, so the user can define custom screens that enable him to launch applications, control media, and display information. In the screen below, icepanel is displaying links to media playback (seen on the screen above), and a link to gps.

New to nGhost is this applications launcher.

As with nGhost1.0, nGhost2 has excellent media playback abilities, supporting just about all the codecs you can think of. Powered by mplayer initially, it also has backend support for phonon, QT's multiplatform API for media playback.

With Icepanel controlling the media playback (pause, skip, etc), here is a screen shot of mplayer playing a video:

The nGhost team hopes you enjoy nGhost2 as we continue to work hard to bring awesome features that define the future of Car Entertainment. nGhost2 has been nominated for "Best new project" and "Project most likely to change the world". If you like it, you can voice your choice too. Visit: sf.net for details. Oh, and you can download it here Thanks

nGhost2.0 beta features walkthrough

2008-04-27T05:09:30Z

nGhost2 (ng2), a nearly complete rewrite of nGhost1, has been in development for almost 6 months. kshots, tripzero, psy_cho, and n2o_2k have been working non-stop with little food (okay, lots of food), to bring this beta to life. There are a number of enhancements over the previous version of nGhost (v1.0.1). Most noticeably at first will be the user interface. Eubey has done another masterpiece designing the graphics for ng2. However, most of the goodies have been done under the hood. I will get into technical details so if you could care less, you might want to jump to the ending. New IPC driven event system ng2's inner loop has strong ties to the external IPC api. In fact, nearly every function that nghost can do can be controlled externally. This gives great flexibility to 3rd parties. The concept of "client-plugins" is a new paradigm in the carpc software space and nghost is leading the way. modular core nGhost sports 4+ media plugins, 2 graphics engine plugins, 4 memory footprint modes, and an external API for client plugins. Other plugins are being developed like the media artwork grabber and weather plugin by n2o_2k. The HDRadio client plugin is also underway. Because of the flexiblity of the nGhost core, many other plugins can easily be developed to enhance the user experience. New GUI system Based on nGhost1's skinning system, ng2 takes it to the next level with dynamically changing widgets. Skins can also be changed on the fly. And new widgets are now available. In particular is the Listbox widget with support for dynamic media filtering ability. nScan nScan is nGhost's solution to constant media awareness. nScan monitors changes in the file system and reports any additional media that has been added or removed from the system to nghost. It also acts as an out-of-process database populator so nGhost can focus more on playback. Summery: Event System: IPC driven with external API Media Playback Engines: gstreamer, mplayer, xine, phonon (and everything phonon supports). Graphics Engines SDL, SDL+OpenGL Memory Modes: daemon mode (no gui) - the lightest No Management - nGhost uses more disk instead of memory Progressive Management - nGhost uses more memory to make common tasks run faster Agressive Management - nGhost allocates all that it can into memory making it run really fast. New GUI Widgets: progress bar, slider, desktop, text objects, and more to come. nScan:Media scanner and database populator. We hope that the community will benefit from new features in nGhost and join us in making the Linux platform the greatest platform for the CarPC and other mobile systems.

Why I will not by a Linksys product ever again.

2008-03-09T22:49:40Z

I'm going to take a pause from my usual blog topics and discuss something very dear to everyone's heart, wifi. This weekend I stopped by wal-mart to look around. My wife and I have been wanting to move the computer upstairs for some time but have been prevented by the need to be physically connected to the router. While I was at wal-mart I saw a 802.11n wireless PCI network card made by Linksys. I was hoping that I would find somewhere written on it that it would work with Linux. I'll I could find was something about window vista which I could care less about. Yes, I could have done a little googling to find out if it was Linux-friendly or not but I just wanted to buy it, slap it in and run. I had dreams in my mind that I would have completed the transfer of the computer upstairs by the end of the day. So I bought the card, went home, installed it and fired up Ubuntu 7.04. iwconfig showed nothing. but lspci showed something that would send me into shock "02:07.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43XG (rev 01)". Yes, the infamous broadcom chip. One of the biggest reasons for the non-widespread adoption of Linux. I quickly performed a google search for driver support. There were a few forum posts on the subject but nothing would seem to work. I even built my own kernel using 2.6.25-rc4 in hopes that I could get it to work. So now I'm sitting here using the vesa display driver cause nvidia refuses to work until I rebuild the modules. I'm currently upgrading to 7.10 hoping that somehow it'll at least recognize the card. Most likely I'll be returning the card shortly. To Linksys, who benefits from Linux in its router products, NAS products and more. Who, I thought, was out to make money: I will never buy another one of your products again until you support Linux. I would suggest you (linksys) not buy broadcom chipsets. They are preventing you from entering a market with virtually no competition. Yes, the Linux Market is wide open! If you could just put somewhere on your box, however small a print you want, that you support Linux, you are going to make money. I will personally give you my money, and so will many others. You also have to gain that people like me will not blog about you and expose your apparent enmity you have with your customers. Linksys, you make money from Linux. You could be making more. Shape up!

LinuxICE Beta2 Release

2008-02-13T01:50:39Z

One step closer as LinuxICE beta2 rolls out. In this release there are a few core features that have been improved: Updated icpanel Icepanel has been updated with a new theme and with a new plugin: icekeyboard. When we upgraded to icepanel we realized that the matchbox-keyboard became unusable. This new version includes a plugin that makes matchbox-keyboard work.

Navit Navit has been included in this version. It includes many bug fixes and additional support for the garmin maps. Also, navit has an improved map fetching utility. Furthermore, with the completion of the TIGER map import into Open Street Maps, you'll be able to download maps for the US! References: Download LinuxICE Beta2 Release Notes navit map extraction tool Known issues: it has been reported that navit does not run. Please run ice-update to get the fixed version which should be available soon.

Jumping off the nvidia bandwagon

2008-02-11T16:41:57Z

I used to be a self-proclaimed nvidia fanboy. Today, I'm moving off the train and watching head off into the sunset. nvidia announced their new mobile chips aimed at windows mobile platforms. Windows mobile? With android and other mobile platforms taking off, why would you target one platform and ignore the one that is actually moving? Google, LG, Nokia, Samsung and Motorola are jumping off windows mobile (if they were on it in the first place) and onto the faster train (Linux), why is nvidia jumping on the train that has gained less market share in 3 years than the iPhone has in 6 months. This chip sports a 750MHz ARM processor and has integrated geforce technology that enables 3D. It also has encoding and decoding support for 720p HD display. 3D would allow compiz-like effects on the phone. Sound like a no-brainer for me. Oh well, I suppose I jumped of the nvidia train a while back when i switched to Linux and started developing a mobile platform for car entertainment systems. See ya nvidia. it's been good while it lasted. maybe we can have an affair later.

icepanel (the little panel that could)

2008-01-03T18:38:16Z

icepanel is a simple dock application that replaces the matchbox-panel in LinuxICE. It is also a server application that can allow client-plugins to connect and perform a number of functions form within the panel. Development: The panel uses a combination of SDL and OpenGL. You can compile for both and sdl is the default. Creating a "dock" application using SDL turned out to be quite a challenge as it requires special extended window manager properties. I could find no way to change the window properties using SDL. Once the SDL window is created, you are stuck with it. So I created the window with the correct properties (_NET_WM_TYPE_DOCK) using XLiband then told SDL to use my X window with the SDL_WINDOWID environment variable. A problem arose from deep within SDL, which disables the SDL_event sub layer when using the SDL_WINDOWID "hack". To get around this I rewrote the nghost's input class using XLib. Everything was fine going forward from there. Icepanel Server: Currently client-plugins can be created by following the examples that come in the icepanel source. A client uses unix/bsd sockets to connect to icepanel. Once connected there are several things a client can do: - Activate buttons. Buttons that where disabled, which are associated with the client's socket handle will become active once a client authenticates itself. - Force button presses. Any button on the panel can be forced pressed by a client. - Force image change. Images on the panel can be changed by the client. This comes in handy for wifi/battery monitoring. - Render text. text registered to a client socket can be dynamically changed. - Progress Bar. a progressbar registered to a client socket can be updated. Good for cpu/memory usage monitoring plugins. These features and more will be ported to nghost also. with icepanel, nghost and LinuxICE, we hope to have a very competitive, integrated and viable carPC solution using Open source technologies.

2 minute Linux new user guide: part 1: terms

2007-12-28T22:51:58Z

Kev's 2 minute Linux newbie guide: Listed below are a few of the terms that threw me when i was new to Linux. Most howto's assume you know this, but I will make no assumptions like that here. If you are coming from windows (like I did), you will find many new terms used that you may not know the meaning to. Here are a few: Distro = A distribution of a Linux based operating system. A distro is may vary in packaging, interface, and functionality that makes it different from any other distro. Source = uncompiled code (c, c++, python, perl, java, etc) Binary = compiled code in binary (usually executable) format Gentoo = source based Linux Distro Debian = Binary Linux based distro Ubuntu = Binary distro based on Debian. Sabayon = More user friendly Gentoo based Distro terminal = console = xterm = konsole = bash shell = command line interface sudo = Super User DO = gives administrative privileges for normal users for commands that follow it package = installation archive (can be either source or binary) Repository = a server where you can get packages from APT = debian package management system -Common gui tools for APT = synaptic (debian, ubuntu, or debian/ubuntu-based distros). Code: - apt-get = command line tool to interface with the apt package management system: - sudo apt-get install [package-name] = installs packages - sudo apt-get remove [package-name] = removes a package - sudo apt-get update = update your packages with the repository server - sudo apt-get dist-upgrade = upgrade all your packages to the latest version (by far the easiest upgrade tool ever) RPM = Red Hat Package management system -tools include yum, and a bunch of others. emerge = the tool used to get packages, compile them, and install them on gentoo and other source based distros. Common network tools: ifconfig = ipconfig in windows (ipconfig on crack) iwconfig = ifconfig for wireless configurations iwlist = list wireless AP's NetworkManager = gnome based network manager (recommended for anyone). GUI Stuff: X11/xorg/XServer = the basic GUI window server, the base for all other gui stuff KDE = K Desktop Environment GNOME = GNU Network Objective Msomething Environment KDE & GNOME = Desktop Environments = runs your desktop gui and stuff Window Manager = Draws windows on the screen, handles window positioning and properties, etc. Mostly getting to know the terms is where the learning curve is. These are the terms that I didn't understand when I first started Linux. There are so many different ways to do one task it gets confusing sometimes. The benefit is when you have learned it, you then will know more about how computers/operating systems work than any window's "Super User". heh, i bet you probably didn't know MS windows had a window management system. It does, you just can't do much with it, and you definitely can't change it. When I was new I googled around for basic tutorials for newbies and found very mixed results that didn't help much. Google is your friend. Most likely somebody has had the same problem as you and found a soluiton. dig in and have fun.

nGhost 1.0

2007-10-14T19:13:37Z

At long last we've finally stabilized and completed the features in nGhost. It seems the code I've originally written oven 1 year ago is reaching its technological limits and a new base must replace it if we are going to move further. We are calling this next release 1.0 and then we are moving on. We will be having a meeting discussing the new nGhost V2.0 core on the 17th of October in the #linuxice IRC channel. There, we will plan out the new roadmap and how we will continue the support of the 1.0 branch. Reason for the new 2.0 Core: The purpose of a CarPC frontend has been to "wrap" the needed functions of a carpc into an easy to use interface in an automotive setting. This was the reason for the early frontend that basically ran on top of windows XP: XPs limitations made it impossible to use in a car. After analysing the overall purpose we realized that by copying what the "windows" guys were doing we were creating something totally unnecessary. Linux with its wide range of customizable window managers and relative technologies puts the original purpose of a frontend away. nGhost 2.0 Core will likely be a more integrated part of the desktop and not a replacement. It will be able to communicate with the desktop, accepting commands and performing functions like music and media playback. It will also accept commands from other applications that take advantage of it. Like Navit - the GPS application.

Kev's car runs Linux!

2007-07-23T16:16:22Z

My car may be considered to be a "sleeper". While it's not much to look at on the outside (Chevrolet Lumina 1992), on the inside is some of the most advanced technology available-- far more advanced than any stock system and most aftermarket systems found at the usual retail outlets. With hardware provided by Nextabyte and powered by open source technology, we get a solution that makes the "technology packages" that car manufacturers ship look like mere Phisher-Price products. Here we go: The Setup (hardware): This is the touchscreen. Conveniently located for easy access to driver and passenger. This is the CarPC and the amps that power the speakers located in the trunk. It isn't the cleanest setup but it is easy to work on. Other Hardware (not shown): -Linksys WRT-54GL Router running dd-wrt (universal auto-repeating router - automatically connects to open wifi) -USB GPS Receiver -USB Infrared Rear View Camera The Setup (software): The software I'm running: OS: Linux ICE Alpha 4 (Ubuntu based carpc centric OS) Frontend: nGhost Media Center Beta 1.0.1 GPS: Navit - Vector Based Navigation Car Statistics Monitoring: Carman 0.6 What it can do: The OS: http://nextabyte.com/nanonymous/forum/download.php?id=94 The Linux ICE boot screen. As soon as Linux ICE boots it runs nGhost Media Center. nGhost acts as the interface to all of the other programs running on the car PC. When not using nGhost, you can do other things using the matchbox window manager. The icons have been enlarged to make it easier to use with touchscreens. There is also a built in, touchscreen friendly on screen keyboard which comes in handy. Media Playback: nGhost Media Center can playback mp3, ogg, and flac music files. It can also playback mpg, mp4, xvid, divx, and avi files in various codecs and flavors. nGhost is powered by mplayer thus making it very powerful and flexible. GPS Navigation: Navit has routing capabilities and has turn by turn directions. Just what you'd expect from a gps application.

nGhost 0.95 and Linux ICE Alpha 4

2007-05-26T04:01:49Z

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything. Not excusing myself here are the updates at nanonymous: Kev's Car PC: I got my car PC system installed. Here are some pics: Kev's Car PC pics. My car is a 1992 Chevy Lumina 3.1 with over 177k miles on it. I'm saving up for my next car. The project was very fun for me and my bro. We are currently working on his right now. nGhost 0.95 nGhost Media Center v0.95 is nearing completion. It will feature a brand new dynamic skinning architecture. Skinners will be happy designing completely new skins and users will be happy about the new look and feel. Special thanks need to go out to the nGhost team and especially Barry who has done so much to improve the code. Other features that are planned for the 0.95 release series include: album artwork, graphical equalizer settings, and a OSD engine for displaying media playback info. The new dynamic skinning architecture opens up the doors for additional features. In an earlier blog I described how mods could be implemented into nGhost. Creating custom screens for such mods or extensions is much easier thanks to the new interface. I've been working on a document that outlines how the new extensions will work in the 0.96 series. Linux ICE Alpha 4 It has been a couple of weeks now since the Alpha 3 launch and it has received some good feedback so far. Alpha 4 will build upon the strengths of Alpha 3 and solve some of the issues. While details are still being worked out Alpha 4 will fix the usplash issue with the shutdown splash. It will feature a newer calibrator that autostarts on the first boot as well as the latest touchscreen driver. Hopefully it will also contain a faster custom kernel and even smaller footprint. Other News There is a new dedicated wiki that can be found at nextabyte.com/wiki. It has a lot of good information about Linux Car PC stuff. That concludes the updates for this week. Stay tuned for more...

PC, Mac, meet... Linux AD

2007-04-05T00:55:54Z

After I saw the famous PC meet Mac commercials, I immediately decided to write a script for PC, Mac and Linux systems. After I finished the scripts, I never got around to doing anything else with them. I was surprised to see some novell ads that had the same idea as me. I won't say that they stole my idea, but it kinda makes you feel good when you know you had the idea first. Anyway, without further adieu, here is my script:

THE PRICE TO PLAY THE GAME. PC: Hi, I'm a PC! MAC: Hi, I'm a mac! LINUX: Hi, I'm a Linux PC! PC: guess what guys? I just upgraded to Vista! MAC: I can tell you look a lot like me now. LINUX: So what's new with your Vista, PC? PC: well I don't know yet because I'm still downloading all of the security updates. LINUX: why your waiting, why don't we go out and get something to eat? PC: sorry guys, to upgrade to vista, I had to withdraw my savings and cash my 401k. LINUX: That's terrible! Looks like it's me and MAC again. MAC: sorry Linux, my last upgrade to tiger cost me a bunch too. You'll have to count me out. LINUX: That's a bummer! I guess I'm flying solo again tonight. MAC: wait!! why is it that you can always afford to eat out all the time? LINUX: Cuz i'm free my friend, just free! No expensive upgrades, No restrictive license agreements just freedom. Catch you later. CANDY FOR MY EYE PC: Hi, I'm a PC! MAC: Hi, I'm a mac! LINUX: Hi, I'm a Linux PC! PC: dude! you've got to check out my new vista graphics effects! Look my windows are all transparent! MAC: that ain't nothing man, check out these awesome desktop widgets that tell me the time, weather and news! LINUX: That's really cool guys, i'm impressed. MAC: well aren't you going to show off anything? PC: hahaha, LINUX probably doesn't have anything cool like that. LINUX: Actually, I have one thing... MAC: well? what is it? LINUX: It's called beryl. Not only can I have some cool widgets, and transparencies, watch this: PC: Wow, that's amazing, I've never seen anything like it. LINUX: this transparent spinning cube is kinda like having 4 different monitors. It makes my computer more like an object that I'm, you know, moving and manipulating. MAC: wow, how can I get that? LINUX: download your free Linux and install it. Its pretty easy, I think even you could do it PC. PC: I can too? and I don't have to sell my pet badger to afford it? SWEET!!! Speed Racer PC: Hi, I'm a PC! MAC: Hi, I'm a mac! LINUX: Hi, I'm a Linux PC! MAC: PC, why are you looking so depressed? PC: I upgraded to vista and wasn't aware of the needed hardware upgrades I needed to make it run fast. I thought I was fast enough, I'm only a year old. LINUX: that's too bad, PC. PC: LINUX, you don't seem to be sad, doesn't your spinning cube thing make you slow? LINUX: No way man! I'm 3 years old and going strong. Linux, can run on almost anything. MAC: He's right, my cell phone runs linux, and so does my big screen TV. PC: what?! how is that? how can Linux run so good on something so old? LINUX: well, Linux is designed to run great on almost anything. In fact, most of the worlds fastest supercomputers are running Linux. That's how efficient and robust it is. PC: Wow, I suddenly feel inefficient and second best. LINUX: come now PC, you shouldn't feel that way, most people don't realize that there is something faster out there. I guess most people don't need that kind of speed. PC: I could use that kind of speed... Mac: Me too...

Linux ICE Alpha 2 + nGhost

2007-03-24T02:13:16Z

It's been a while since my last blog, but delays occur because we've been busy developing. Linux ICE Alpha 1 was a good taste of things to come. This version had over 22 downloads and the Linux ICE team received lots of good feedback. Linux ICE Alpha 2 was released a couple of weeks ago and so far it has received even more feedback. Alpha 2 was much more technically advanced than its predecessor in that it contained touchscreen drivers and an easy way to get the touchscreen up and working. The main focus of the release was to verify the Linux ICE team's build system. A very extensive build system was created with scripts and other files to make building and maintenance easier. This build system implemented in Alpha 2 is to become the base of future Linux ICE releases. I recently noticed a new package that was included in the Debian unstable repository on the 16 of March (2007). This package is labeled: "xserver-xorg-input-evtouch". And contains the latest evtouch driver in an easy to install debian package. I'm not currently sure if the next version of ubuntu (feisty fawn) will include this package as they seem to have frozen their repositories but I'm sure it will make it into the next release sometime in October of this year. nGhost also received much more attention in the weeks following the release of Linux ICE Alpha 2. The 0.94.5 release has been touted as the most stable release of nGhost to date. Dozens of bugs were fixed and many new features where encoded to provide the best experience possible. In a previous blog, I talked about the changes coming to nGhost in 0.94.6. The next release of nGhost will not likely carry the 0.94.6 version number as it will contain too many changes just to merit a minor version number change. The next nGhost release will likely be a major version number change like 0.95 or 0.96. I'd like to talk a few moments about the future of nGhost. Currently nGhost is undergoing heavy code and design changes. This isn't an entire rewrite of the code but merely some very heavy enhancements. 2 new classes (surface.h and input.h) have been written to make skinning much more modular. This will be the changes that will enable users to create their own completely customized skin. nGhost is also undergoing a new design phase to make it support user customized modules. Through using the database tables, users can create modules that will do certain things like: -custom internet links module -custom application launcher module -custom database management queries module -special media modules -playlists and playlist management modules The modules will be created by using the nghost web interface. Modules can be exported for others to share as PHP scripts (ie "coolmod.php.mod"). This is in the very early stages of development so it may not be realized within any short time. These future enhancements are just a taste of what the developers have been dreaming up. Cheers until next time, Kev

Fresh Nanonymous

2007-02-18T18:58:36Z

You may or may not have noticed that nanonymous.org's new website. The new logo was built using Inkscape Vector Illustrator. Also added was a ad/link to nanonymous.org's sponsor: Nextabyte.com. They provide the hosting for nanonymous.org. The nGhost project is setting up for version 0.94.6. The main feature will be a brand new "awe-some" skin created by Eubey. Other features will be announced soon. The Linux ICE project will also receive many enhancements this week as we push to release an early alpha .iso image. For more details see the LinuxICE website.

The very first blog... ever

2007-02-04T17:13:46Z

For this first episode (as it were), I'd like to focus on something that I've been using for a while now. I have been alpha/beta testing ubuntu feisty fawn since "herd1" was released a few months ago. I am really excited about the changes in feisty and will outline a few highlights that might not be well known among ubuntu users. Feisty Technology: Feisty Fawn uses linux kernel 2.6.20-rc6. This kernel has been benchmarked to outperform the 2.6.19 kernels in almost every test. It also includes support for the Play Station 3 with patches from our good friends at Sony. I plan on getting a PS3 just for this reason. Upstart has been improved and startups will get only better and faster from here on out. The development libraries in feisty seem the same and many compiled binaries from feisty work in edgy (at least for the time being). One notable thing about development in feisty is that it includes the newest version of kdevelop. I love what they have done with this new version. Gnome Control Panel: This little menu replaces the System->preferences and System->Administration menus. It looks spectacular. The icon look professional, and everything is arranged and categorized in a very nice manner. Network Roaming: A very interesting little piece of technology in feisty, especially for my interest in car computing, is the roaming functions in feisty. In theory, when this function is activated, users will be able to connect automatically to open wifi access points without having to manually switch profiles. I haven't tested this as of yet, but it is a great idea especially for car PC users who are always on the go. 3D effects: One of Feisty's feature points has been the automatic inclusion of the 3D Desktop with AiGlx and other graphic layers. When I installed feisty it did not automatically load the restricted nvidia modules on my system. I had to go and edit my /etc/X11/xorg.conf to use the nvidia driver. After I got the driver up, I went ahead and started playing around with Beryl. I must say, beryl is awesome. I spent hours just playing with the settings (there are a lot of settings). I was amazed at how beryl can improve desktop functionality with features similar to the alt+tabbing in the Mac OS and the spinning cube from compiz. However, my experiments weren't without problems. I'm using the SVN 0.20 version of Beryl which isn't stable by any means. It works well, but not without problems. For example, I couldn't get any of the emerald themes to load. I made several posts in the beryl forum, and many people seem to share the same problem. However, a remedy isn't in sight yet. I have theme-less, border-less windows :( . Conclusion: I am excited for the Feisty Fawn release in April. This will be, as always a great distro for noobs, and hacks alike. Other distributions seem to be borrowing some of feisty's feature points. The latest Knoppix for example, includes a 3d desktop by default also. Thanks for reading my very first blog. Hope you enjoyed the information. I'd like to give special thanks to nextabyte.com for hosting the nanonymous.org website and this blog. If you are interested in car computing using the Linux operating system, check out those links. Cheers, Kev