The Mighty Linux Blog: The Coolest Penguin-Powered Car in the World!

Have you ever met someone so geeky that they want a computer wherever they go? I'm definately one of them, but I'm nothing compared to this guy. He actually has a Gentoo system set up for his car, the CarPC. It uses a customized MythTV frontend and a plethora of shell scripts to do what it can do. This is why we love Linux and Open Source so much - it is so customizable and versitile. It is simply not possible to get all these programs and scripts to sing together on Windows.

But this is the most awesome car in the world. He has it set up so he can watch DirecTV wherever he is! His CarPC has bluetooth functionality, so it is able to connect to his Cell Phone, which in turn gives the CarPC access to 500 KB/s functionality anywhere thanks to Verizon's EVDO network. Through a few scripts and SSH access, he can connect to his MythTV backend server at home, change channels, and use VLC to stream live TV into his car - HOW COOL IS THAT?

My second favorite Penguin feature of this car is also equally cool. He has a USB GPS adapter and a WiFi card. What can you do with these working in conjunction? Plot WiFi Hotspots! His CarPC is constantly searching for WiFi hotspots. When it finds a new one, it uses GPS to plot it's coordinates and then Google Maps API to publish them to the internet. What's more, it even identifies which networks are locked and unlocked by a Green/Red indication. A good half of them are unlocked

What else can this car do?
Taken from his website:

Listen to music
Watch videos/movies
Control audio with steering wheel control. Since the audio is fed into the HU with a P.I.E adapter, the steering wheel is my "master" volume control.
View Pictures in a slideshow
Sniff wireless networks and plot them with GPS - I've plotted the APs I've found, and integrated it with Google's Map API
Download and view local Weather info, including 3 day forcast and doplar radar
Browse the web with Firefox
Connect to my cell phone with bluetooth, and connect to Verizon's EVDO network
Stream DirecTV from my house. <- This is my FAVORITE - Basically I am using ssh keys and scripts to connect to my MythTV box at home, change to the channel I want, start vlc, which does on the fly transcoding of the signal, then connects to it from my CarPC. The result is a list of channels in my videos menu, I select the channel I want, and it all happens auto-magically.
Remote start my car, and connect to it from inside my house. I can SSH in, and transfer files without even getting off my couch :)

(note: he can't use the computer to start the car, he uses the dealer-installed remote start and then can connect to the computer)

The only thing it can't do is turn by turn steering. There just isn't software like that for Linux.

But what is the best part? The PC is hidden under the car seat, and the LCD display and controls for MythTV are very well hidden into the car. He also has a wireless keyboard and mouse to control it as well.

CarPC Site
WiFi Hotspots
MythTV Site