Ok, I am open to suggestions. I want to build some sort of device that has linux embedded in it. I have no clue what but I thought it would be cool. I have till March 8, 2005. So approximately 2 months.

I am open to all ideas. I am sure you guys have had some cool ideas that you never have gotten around to them.

If I go through with a project like this I would be documenting the entire thing from the ground up.

DO NOT HESITATE TO POST!!!!!!!

Thanks.

If you're looking to build a product for marketing/selling (rather than just personal use) then I was thinking a while ago that it would be kind of cool to have a Linux games console. Plus it would encourage people to write more commercial games software for Linux.

It could be done very easily with an embedded motherboard (better yet a fanless one) with a TV-out socket and a couple of spare USB ports. The difficult part would be getting games companies on board to make games for it.

Just a thought.

This would be for personal use. One of the things I thought of last night was a camera SD card reader that would download the data directly to an external harddrive. It would be setup so that it could work outside the use of a computer. Like out in the wild.

Here are a couple of ideas.
[brain storming]
I know there must be quite a few devices like this, but a car audio system which at the same time would have a little LCD display to show you the current playlist and not only the current audio track with mutli-audio support, of course (ogg, wma, mp3/4, AAC, CD-A) it'd be excellent if it supported CDHD too (you know, the new AC3 format) with the aid of a small processor to do the AC3 decoding (I think an x86@166MHz should be able to do it)[/brain storming]

And about the games console... I have actually thought about it... like a hybrid Xbox, I couldn't say about the processor speed/arch, and especially to successfully be a quiet one. With Linux-BIOS in a ROM and a flash memory for the filesystem with a tiny implementation of X and an HDD for save games and a DVD as the optical drive (with maybe an option to have games actually installed). The most trickier parts are the video and core processor in the HW end of things, I think; and the issue of getting companies to actually make games for it. Another somewhat tricky part are the input devices... Gamepads are Ok for pretty much every type of game, but in others (AKA FPS) nothing beats a keyboard + mouse combo.... Maybe a modified numeric pad (you know, like ones they sell for laptops), plus a 3-5 button mouse would rock. I know this is only day-dreaming but it would be nice to see a console incorporate these.

How about a home stereo system that would connect wirelessly to a home network, and be able to connect to a running copy of Music Player Daemon, or even run it's own copy of mpd using music shared from all other computers in the house.

I would do a set-top box that can play video, music files, and DVDs.

Check out MythTV for an idea of what you could do.

This sounds cool. I will research the cost of creating something very box. Can MythTV be setup to utilize a remote control. If so I would probably go through with it.

Keepem coming. I like the idea of a linux based media pc. Any hardware recommendations, try to think cheap.

- Mike

Check out http://www.linuxtoys.org/ for ideas

Regards

Shmonkey

How about moving the set-top box to a new level?

Have a fully equipped pc do all the work but build a video tablet interface/input device to access/run the pc. Take it as far as you can:

1. Touch LCD and only enough hardware to run VNC (well, the display) and ethernet on Linux.
2. Move from wired to wireless (chipsets are available to also do mpeg4).
3. Add video streaming (I don't remember how they did it but, long ago, AT&T had VNC AND motion video running on a "bare" lcd touch panel which actually loaded VNC from the network upon connection).

This may sound familiar but, I am not talking about another TabletPC. This would rather be closer to the wireless display Microsoft tried to sell everyone on. Good idea but too proprietary (not to mention slow).

Are you looking for more hardware or software related fun?

I would like to focus on more on software then hardware. Something like 70% software and 30% hardware.

In this case, how about building something like the new HP home media system (looks like a piece of hi-fi audio component).

1. A sharp looking kiosk style front end to run DVD, TV, CD, Internet streams (mp3, video, etc) from any network and local source (kind of close to the new Winamp for Windows with the media library). Basically, some fancy front to run xmms, kafeine, xine and the likes.
2. HP uses a tiny cool looking RF keyboard with trackball. Almost identical to Globlink GKM880 RF USB (I also want to make mine to work in SuSE - challenge hare is to make trackball buttons work in Linux as described here:
http://www.tcnj.edu/~tolboom2/globlink_rf88.html ) and assign remaining media keys for volume, etc. with xev.
3. Find micro ATX board that would accept mobile CPU for fanless heatsink (the whole thing needs to be as quiet as possible).
4. Output video to either a TV or monitor (or both).

Not too expensive. I've got the keyboard for $49 (eBay) and a TV card for $69 (RadioShack) CAD (US will be less).
The nice part about the keyboard is that it has a trackball which is much better then a stick or those gamepad style thumb buttons. RF is nice since you don't have to point the keyboard directly. My TV card is a cheap PixelViewPro (uses the same Phillips tuner as ATI AIW). One problem I need to resolve is channel tuning (have to manually set channel to television and then reset to composite upon each start).

Now, for Windows this is one day project including kiosk front end programming with MMB but in Linux, I found it to be challenging (yea, rteal Linux newbe here :-)

Have fun regardless of what you build!

It would be cool to build a linux media pc. I would love to utilize a touch sensite lcd display. It wouldn't have to be big. Just large enough to control the "media player" that I would use.

The weird part about touch screens is that they used to be inexpansive as addon (i.e. elo touch wave which is actually a sheet of glass - perfect for extra lcd protection) to lcd screens but after the whole thing with Microsoft TabletPC, touch screens got a lot more expensive (magic).

There used to be cheap touch screens on eBay formely used in Internet PCs. I wonder if those might be found anywhere? Something like that (about 800x600 or 640x480 7-12 inch screen would do nicely. And, there used to be wireless ones as well. Somehow, good stuff keeps disappearing realy fast!

Something close would be the Viewsonic AirPanel V110 - if only one could make this with Linux!

For example, just enough hardware to run Xserver as a client in a LTSP setup on a small wireless touch tablet.

Magic, yeah. Interesting.

Would it be hard to set up the remote controller thing with a Linux machine if the thing ran a protocol compatiable with whatever their Windows software uses? Doesn't sound hard. Only hard thing is to run the actual tablet on Linux, which, I understand, would be the whole point.