Recommended first steps

This is my first post since registering. Please forgive me if I am asking a "tired" question. What I desperately need is a point in the right direction for what I need to do. Our company is developing products with various size LCD displays which will sit on a CAN bus to display data received in CAN messages (engine data, speed, temperature, etc.). I have very little experience as a Linux user and no experience as an embedded Linux (EL) developer. I have been mostly a bare metal embedded C developer for SBCs for many years. That's my specialty. I now have to start developing EL software for these new products and don't know where to start. I have heard that Qt is a good way to go but know nothing about it. My question is what would be the fastest way for me to get up to speed in developing EL software for these new SBCs with LCD displays? What development tools should I invest in and they do not have to be open source. The key is, it needs to be a simple path forward even if it cost money rather than open source.

Hi and welcome to LQ.

I'm moving this thread over the the embedded and single board computer forum for better exposure.

My feedback is to buy several kits from SBC providers and evaluate them. Also to see about extra services they can provide to aid you with establishing a board support package and a development environment.

I've found that the company InHand is very helpful, I've worked with a lot of their boards, plus they also provide excellent engineering assistance. Once again, as you cite, "for cost", however you said that is acceptable.

And look for real SBC solutions, stay away from hobby kits. They're great to look at and consider, but if you're not going to design a custom PCB on your own, then you cannot count on the supply chain for a hobby board to be reliable for a product distribution. Best only case I've ever known about is that someone established a product code for their company's version of a Beagle Bone Black. This gave them a full bill of materials and an established PCB design. Therefore they could go to a PCB fabricator and have bare boards made and then kit the parts and send that all to a contract manufacturer for assembly. This alleviated them from needing to find BBB's available on the market and also avoided various different versions where they needed to maintain the same version of the board.

I can only suggest you to learn (to use) the devices/tools/softwares you will use.

Thank you very much, rtmistler, for your response. I'm going to look at InHand and see what they offer.