As I mentioned in a previous post, this email thread is intended to track potential embedded Linux projects to pursue. Below I will list to the best of my recollection/notes what people came up with at the meeting, but we are also welcoming ideas from people who did not attend the meeting. If this email thread gets too long I'll happily migrate it to a wiki page.
Please feel free to correct me if I'm inadvertently including any misinformation below. *** Personal Telco Project/OpenWrt *** The Personal Telco Project is quite active and doing lots of work with wireless routers and the OpenWrt Linux distro. Russell Senior has a number of projects people could jump in on, including: * We need to bring up a bootloader (either u-boot or redboot) on a PePLink WINTI board (from the SkyPilot SkyExtender devices) * We'll need to add support for the WINTI board to OpenWrt * We are currently working on debugging a memory leak in OpenWrt (seeing it on both Netgear WGT634U and Alix) Another idea that was mentioned was taking some of the OpenWrt-capable routers that have a USB port and turning them into home wireless automation control devices through the addition of a USB to serial port adapter and the required software. Many home lighting systems are serial-based as well as other sensor devices. http://www.personaltelco.net/ http://openwrt.org/ *** Open Source Board Support Kit/SDK for MikroTik RouterBoard *** Michael Dexter mentioned that he would like to see the development of an open source board support kit and SDK aimed toward students using an open hardware single board computer. Michael will need to confirm this, but I believe the hardware platform he had in mind for this was the MikroTik RouterBoard: http://www.routerboard.com/pricelist.php?group_id=11 One might consider taking the Linux from Scratch tutorial and adapting it to include details about a particular board. http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ *** Thermostat which Accounts for Humidity *** Michael also noted that an idea he would find useful would be a thermostat system which takes into account the humidity level, to create a more consistent human comfort level. This would be more of a low-level project involving some hardware hacking. *** Microcontroller-based Garage Door Control System *** Galen talked about how useful it would be to have his garage door close automatically after a certain amount of idle time (e.g, 10 minutes) to eliminate nagging worries of whether he remembered to close the garage door upon leaving for work. This would be more of a low-level project involving some hardware hacking. *** Handheld Public Transit Tracker *** This is a pretty ambitious project, but one that might also have some commercial viability. Currently smartphone users enjoy mobile applications that allow them to see the status of public transit lines in the immediate area (e.g, when the next bus is coming and how to get to the stop). There are many people who could use this kind of mobile application, but do not want or cannot afford a smartphone. What kinds of devices are out there (such as the Nokia N810 and Clarion MIND) which have embedded GPS chips and web access that could be used to develop a proof of concept application like this? Once that is done, the next step would be to "cost" the device into the minimum hardware necessary to perform the service (e.g, a touchscreen is not likely a requirement, etc). These were some of the ideas thrown around during the meetup last Thursday. The intention of this email and email thread is to see if any of them "stick" enough that at least a couple of people are willing to start working on them. Please add your own feedback and/or suggest ideas of your own! Scott -- Scott Garman sgarman at zenlinux dot com _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
