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View Full Version : Flavo(u)r of Linux for robotics?

shobley
06-26-2009, 08:40 AM
Sometime ago I created a disk image of XP for my robotic K9 - it runs from a flash drive on a mini-ITX board and uses all the neat tricks created for automobile computing installation.

I would really like to replace this with Linux - are there any recommendations for which flavour of Linux to use? And are there any good libraries or dev tools for this kind of thing?

Unfortunately K9 has a small 8" touch screen - so I guess I would need to run some kind of desktop and develop for this environment. Rather than running "headless".

Vision processing would be important, along with socket based communications + wireless networking. Audio/Video playback would also be nice.

...and maybe the Phidget library too...

Steve
jes1510
06-27-2009, 01:58 AM
Take a look at Ubuntu. It has pretty good hardware support and is widely tauted as the easiest Linux Distro to get used to. If you need something tiny then look at puppy linux or DSL (Damned Small Linux).
lnxfergy
06-27-2009, 10:38 AM
Take a look at Ubuntu. It has pretty good hardware support and is widely tauted as the easiest Linux Distro to get used to. If you need something tiny then look at puppy linux or DSL (Damned Small Linux).

Hmm... we think way too much alike Jes, that was pretty much what I was going to say. I might add, that for development work with a light footprint, take a scan through the 300+ Puppy Linux remixes, there are quite a few tailored for development in a particular language.

-Fergs
shobley
06-29-2009, 12:28 PM
Thanks - I'll take a look at that Puppy...
:-)
robologist
06-29-2009, 12:59 PM
Any opinions on Gentoo?
lnxfergy
06-29-2009, 01:02 PM
Any opinions on Gentoo?

Unless you wish to supplant your robotics hobby with a linux hobby.. stay away, stay far, far away....

-Fergs
Adrenalynn
06-29-2009, 01:29 PM
Awww, it's not like it's Slackware... :tongue:
shobley
06-30-2009, 08:46 AM
Thanks guys 'n' gals (as Sir James of Saville says)

I've been playing around with Ubuntu for a while, but I think DSL and Puppy are more what I need.
Can you give me some pointers on dev sites? Eg. I wrote a simple TCP/IP server process in .Net and I'd really like to do the same thing in Linux. I have KDevelop and gcc running, but don't seem to be able to find that much in the way of code samples.

Are there any good sites out there?

Steve

P.S. What is the desktop environment in DSL? Some kind of X server? What do I develop against to make applications for that?