AVIC 700BT Hardware

[teksimian]

What hardware comprises the avic700bt?

 

I'm wondering if there's linux drivers for it, and whether linux would run on it.

 

An alternative OS would be so nice. Pioneer's OS sucks imo, and now they want money for upgrades? not cool.

[BorisM]

What hardware comprises the avic700bt?

 

I'm wondering if there's linux drivers for it, and whether linux would run on it.

 

An alternative OS would be so nice. Pioneer's OS sucks imo, and now they want money for upgrades? not cool.

 

And as usual, Linux would be as useful on an AVIC as glasses on a monkey.

[teksimian]

What hardware comprises the avic700bt?

 

I'm wondering if there's linux drivers for it, and whether linux would run on it.

 

An alternative OS would be so nice. Pioneer's OS sucks imo, and now they want money for upgrades? not cool.

 

And as usual, Linux would be as useful on an AVIC as glasses on a monkey.

 

It would be useful because it could potentially improve load times, have a media player with a seekbar and bookmarks, as well as rid it of all the other nuanced warning messages, improve navigation and the user interface.

 

But the question posed was whether it would be possible to get a list of hardware, not whether you deem it beneficial.

[abb1]

What hardware comprises the avic700bt?

 

I'm wondering if there's linux drivers for it, and whether linux would run on it.

 

An alternative OS would be so nice. Pioneer's OS sucks imo, and now they want money for upgrades? not cool.

The only update that you will have to pay for is the ones that have a map upgrade. You are not paying for the firmware update, but you are for the map update. That is the reason for the upgrade fee. You have to pay for map upgrades for any GPS system that you buy. The OS is not Pioneers, but rather Windows CE from Microsoft. Also. putting linux on a mobil system is silly as that is NOT what it was designed for.

[FourG]

What hardware comprises the avic700bt?

 

I'm wondering if there's linux drivers for it, and whether linux would run on it.

 

An alternative OS would be so nice. Pioneer's OS sucks imo, and now they want money for upgrades? not cool.

OK, opinions aside (and yes, I agree with BorisM's point that if we could just cook a better WinCE image and applications we'd be in a quicker starting point), here are some of the facts about the hardware:

 

CPU is a SiRF (who bought Centrality) Titan CPU with an ARM1136J core and a VPU coprocessor (hence the "dual core" claim).

256 MB of DDR1 RAM (unknown device manufacturer/model) @ 133MHz.

Bootloader is stored on a Spansion S29AL004D70BF102 (256 MB).

NAND Flash chip is a SAMSUNG K9GAG08U0M-PIB0 (2Gb).

MSN firmware (F900/F90BT only) is an SST 34HF1641J.

AC97 Audio Codec (unknown vendor) provides audio out and touch panel 4-wire position input data.

Front Panel (buttons) interface via ADC chip.

 

CPU is connected via USP to:

- Parrot bluetooth handsfree chip (only provides handsfree and serial port profiles, no A2DP)

 

CPU is connected via UARTS to:

- MSN module (UART0)

- Serial connector (not populated, probably UART1 for debug messages on WinCE console)

- uCOM system FPGA (UART2, sounds like it might be a Xilinx from one of Carver's posts)

 

CPU is connected via I2C to:

- Video Decoder switch (I2C0)

- Dead reckoning ADC (I2C1) - Provides Gyro and G sensor data

 

CPU is connected via LVDS to:

- 5.8" TFT LCD touch panel (unknown vendor/model)

 

So far we haven't found Linux drivers for any of this hardware floating around in the Internet. What's especially important to consider is if there is bootloader code in the Navi board to make the CPU kickstart the uCOM over the UART, since that device controls everything on the AV board (e-Volume, audio and video source switching, IP Bus communication with XM/HD modules).

 

Lots of block diagrams and schematics can be found in the AVIC-F90BT/XS/UC service manual, and teardown data can be found in carver's posts (search the Hacks/Mods F-Series forum for his username).

[teksimian]

What hardware comprises the avic700bt?

 

I'm wondering if there's linux drivers for it, and whether linux would run on it.

 

An alternative OS would be so nice. Pioneer's OS sucks imo, and now they want money for upgrades? not cool.

The only update that you will have to pay for is the ones that have a map upgrade. You are not paying for the firmware update, but you are for the map update. That is the reason for the upgrade fee. You have to pay for map upgrades for any GPS system that you buy. The OS is not Pioneers, but rather Windows CE from Microsoft. Also. putting linux on a mobil system is silly as that is NOT what it was designed for.

 

 

I'm sorry I don't understand what your mean by linux is not designed for mobile systems. One of the primary applications of linux *is* embedded applications. Such as android.

[BorisM]

It would be useful because it could potentially improve load times, have a media player with a seekbar and bookmarks, as well as rid it of all the other nuanced warning messages, improve navigation and the user interface.

 

But the question posed was whether it would be possible to get a list of hardware, not whether you deem it beneficial.

 

And what navigation software would you put on it? There are few Navi systems that run on Linux (i.e. TomTom's PNAs), none that I know of are for sale to run on third party hardware. And without navigation, AVIC isn't exactly useful.

[FourG]

And what navigation software would you put on it? There are few Navi systems that run on Linux (i.e. TomTom's PNAs), none that I know of are for sale to run on third party hardware. And without navigation, AVIC isn't exactly useful.

There aren't many as polished as iGo, Tom Tom or Garmin, but there are open-source nav programs that exist:

 

http://navit.sourceforge.net/ (I like this one, uses gpsd for location and speechd to announce directions)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/

http://www.gpsdrive.de/

http://roadmap.sourceforge.net/

http://roadnav.sourceforge.net/

 

OK, the remainder of this will be a small rant, feel free to stop reading and go about your day/night. I'm about to get touchy-feely, consider yourself warned.

 

For teksimian, the whole point of considering Linux would be to use a set of apps of his choosing, contribute fixes and enhacements back to the apps he uses or if he so chooses write his own from scratch. In theory, he could do the same on a Win CE platform. Yes, if he chooses Linux he would likely also include writing his own drivers to duplicate the ones already done for Win CE for our device. Yes, Win CE is probably the platform that's targeted the most because of market share and a healthy support ecosystem. But something to consider is that the platform is not completely open and doesn't have the lowest capital cost of entry (I'd cite the non-free dev tools required as the biggest obstacle). This might have caused teksimian to seek an alternative. Other alternatives could have easily have included QNX, FreeBSD or any other OS that can run on an ARM architecture.

 

I respect that many of us have firmly held opinions regarding alternative OSes on our AVICs, but you have to recognize there are individuals in our AVIC community interested in running them. In this case, all teksimian wanted to know was what hardware the system uses. This request was for facts about the hardware and not soliciting our preferred choice of OS. Of course, this is my own opinion and guides how I interact with teksimian or anyone else on the forum. Just something I hope will be considered by others and hopefully make them pause before typing a flippant response, since the forum has recently driven away some great contributors like IDT and might scare off potential contributors like teksimian with adversarial responses. Remember, we have the Wiki available to use to start collecting FAQs with their answers, and can guide new people towards them and hopefully cut down on the frustrating repetition of n00b questions.

 

Just some food meant for thought. I hope I haven't offended anyone, but chances are I did anyway.

[BorisM]

There aren't many as polished as iGo, Tom Tom or Garmin, but there are open-source nav programs that exist:

 

http://navit.sourceforge.net/ (I like this one, uses gpsd for location and speechd to announce directions)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/

http://www.gpsdrive.de/

http://roadmap.sourceforge.net/

http://roadnav.sourceforge.net/

 

Yeah, of these, NavIT is the only one that shows some potential of, eventually, being useful as a navigation tool. The rest either haven't been developed in ages, or aren't exactly useful for in-car navigation, and/or rely on maps that would make one look at our old TeleAtlas maps with love and devotion.

 

OK, the remainder of this will be a small rant, feel free to stop reading and go about your day/night. I'm about to get touchy-feely, consider yourself warned.

 

For teksimian, the whole point of considering Linux would be to use a set of apps of his choosing, contribute fixes and enhacements back to the apps he uses or if he so chooses write his own from scratch. In theory, he could do the same on a Win CE platform. Yes, if he chooses Linux he would likely also include writing his own drivers to duplicate the ones already done for Win CE for our device. Yes, Win CE is probably the platform that's targeted the most because of market share and a healthy support ecosystem. But something to consider is that the platform is not completely open and doesn't have the lowest capital cost of entry (I'd cite the non-free dev tools required as the biggest obstacle). This might have caused teksimian to seek an alternative. Other alternatives could have easily have included QNX, FreeBSD or any other OS that can run on an ARM architecture.

 

I respect that many of us have firmly held opinions regarding alternative OSes on our AVICs, but you have to recognize there are individuals in our AVIC community interested in running them. In this case, all teksimian wanted to know was what hardware the system uses. This request was for facts about the hardware and not soliciting our preferred choice of OS. Of course, this is my own opinion and guides how I interact with teksimian or anyone else on the forum. Just something I hope will be considered by others and hopefully make them pause before typing a flippant response, since the forum has recently driven away some great contributors like IDT and might scare off potential contributors like teksimian with adversarial responses. Remember, we have the Wiki available to use to start collecting FAQs with their answers, and can guide new people towards them and hopefully cut down on the frustrating repetition of n00b questions.

 

Just some food meant for thought. I hope I haven't offended anyone, but chances are I did anyway.

 

It's rant time!

 

Yes, as a development project, it might be an interesting project to take on, even though I would argue that while WinCE development tools aren't free, they still are lightyears ahead of almost anything that might be available for free for Linux. Having said that... both AVIC hardware and how different pieces fit together has been hashed out here many times and available with the least effort.

 

It would be one thing if someone like you, who obviously knows what he's talking about, would propose trying to hack a workable Linux system on an AVIC. I might even contribute. It's another thing when someone who clearly has a very vague idea about software, thinks that there is Pioneer's OS, etc., etc. asks a question (that has been asked several times over the years) because he does not want to pay for map updates...