I'm a bit of a linux n00b so bear with me on my terminology. I'm gonna get a crappy old laptop as an mp3 player and street map for my car. The specs are looking like ~120Mhz, 32-64MB ram, 1-2GB hdd, onboard sound, network card etc. Hopefully, the LCD for the laptop will be mounted next to the car's steering wheel, and the keyboard somewhere there too. No mouse of course! I'm probably going to end up writing some software for this too. What I want is a graphical application that runs straight from the console, without having to load KDE or Gnome or anything. This is mostly to help boot times... I want to be able to start playing MP3s soon after turning it on. I'm thinking of writing it with SDL or something similar, but I'm open to suggestions here. I'll use existing open-source console MP3 software. What I'm asking is, after installing a very basic linux system (probably slackware), what additional software/libraries/APIs do I need to install to get sound/graphics? Do I have to install X? What about a desktop environment? I want to avoid one for speed/HDD space restrictions One last thing... to get MP3s/files on and off, I want to run an FTP server (which isn't started automatically at startup)... so what software will I need for this? Any other suggestions/comments are very welcome. Thanks!!

Take a look at using a framebuffer and the DirectFB (i think) support of SDL or GTK to run applications without X.

That's pretty minimal...

I've found the SVGAlib useful. Much better API then the FB (if you even can call it a API) But it's maybe a little outdate. I'm using it for grahpics on my P100 and it's fast.

C-Junkie and danne89... both of those look like great suggestions, thanks a lot! It looks like exactly what I need.

Awesome... thanks again

don't get yourself killed in a car accident, lol.

Quote: Original post by Cipher3D
don't get yourself killed in a car accident, lol.

Hahaha yeah, I've thought about the distraction this might be from driving. It's a case of "User-friendly or die".

Actually, I think New Zealand has a law that there isn't supposed to be a TV where the driver can see it... but I don't think that this will be counted as a TV.

Here we go: clixxor

Quote: Subclause 2.5(1) does not apply if:
the screen is only capable of displaying text and any change to the text on the screen is controlled manually by the driver.

I've seen car stereos with simple graphics that change... animated logos etc. It's a question of where to draw the line. I mean, technically this laptop COULD show "TV" (like a movie), but then... so could some car stereos if you were smart enough :)

Anyway, I'll have to email and ask for some clarification, and if they say "no", I'll just have to take the laptop out when I get the warrant. :D

why not put a console based mp3 player on it rather than making a gui? The authorities won't know how to start the gui as it's linux after all.. Just use the street map functions when you're stopped.. Cause they can't do anything about the driver watching TV when they're stopped..

Quote: Original post by eedok
why not put a console based mp3 player on it rather than making a gui? The authorities won't know how to start the gui as it's linux after all.. Just use the street map functions when you're stopped.. Cause they can't do anything about the driver watching TV when they're stopped..

Good points. Besides, do the authorities have "authority" to even use my computer without my permission? Like if I put a password on startup, would I have to give them it? Maybe they'd refuse to pass me until I showed them what sort of thing I'd use it for.

Anyway, it probably won't matter... by the look of this car I'd say it won't pass it's next warrant anyway. Still, for future reference it'd be nice to know what you could legally have displayed on a computer screen within the driver's sight.

Considering that there are commercial GPS navigation devices which I can only assume are available in your area, there must be some loophole that allows such devices...