# CarPC front-ends?



## rockgod (Jun 2, 2018)

First, I guess I'm late to the party, it seems the CarPC idea was more popular 10 years or more ago. Doesn't seem to be that popular anymore.

Secondly, I do see a fair number of threads here at this forum discussing possible front-end software products. But all the threads are old. That is why I decided to start a new thread.

Reading threads here, and other web searches, I found a good-sized stack of names of possible front-end programs. The list is: Centrafuse, Streetdeck, Carlos, XCar, Headunit, Frodo Player, Media Engine, Mobile Impact, Freeway, Pycar, OpenMobile, Meedio, Auto Fi, Ashincar.

None of them seem to be currently in active development. To some of them, I found links to download, but they failed to run. Perhaps because I'm trying them out on my current Windows 11 main computer and maybe they are designed for older OSes. I haven't decided for sure what OS to put on my CarPC, but I was expecting either 10 or 11. Others, the links I found were broken. Others are just gone.

Carlos did come up and run to some degree, but it generated errors as I tried to use it. AutoFi seems to work, but it is just a media player front end designed for low resolution touch screens, its not a full CarPC front-end. I didn't yet try Pycar because it has a lot of dependencies such as Python. So, I figured I would try all the others first. I guess its time to try PyCar because I did try all the others.

Again, it might be my OS since I'm using Windows 11, but, so far, haven't found anything usable.

It's possible I could do without any such front-end. Windows 10 and 11 have tablet mode operation, so, maybe I won't need a front-end?

In a previous life, I used to be a software developer. Though I'm out of practice. It has crossed my mind to try to play with coming up with something on my own, but, I'm not sure how much time I want to devote to such a project. And, if I did put together something cool, by some miracle, it appears that there is no money in selling such a product since everybody that has tried has gone out of business. So I guess I would just do it for myself if at all.


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## rockgod (Jun 2, 2018)

Well, after posting the above, I figured I might as well try and get PyCar going. As I said, it is written in Python, which I know very little about. And it has some dependencies. And there are issues with the dependencies. One of them is PyGame, and the PyGame website is down, saying something about a protest regarding Ukraine. Though I found some downloads for it on PyPi.org. Though I could only find version 2.x downloads and PyCar seems to require 1.6 or so. Argh!


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## khlae (Dec 31, 2016)

There's a pretty large pile of forks of pycar on github.... which version/fork are you using? pygame 1.71 is from 2005, so if you need 1.6 that must be absolutely ancient as far as python goes, there's newer forks that probably will have a better chance of working.


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## rockgod (Jun 2, 2018)

See next post...


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## rockgod (Jun 2, 2018)

khlae said:


> There's a pretty large pile of forks of pycar on github.... which version/fork are you using? pygame 1.71 is from 2005, so if you need 1.6 that must be absolutely ancient as far as python goes, there's newer forks that probably will have a better chance of working.


Okay, I searched for PyCar on GitHub. It seems hopeless to find anything. I get hundreds of hits, but many are for PyCard or PyCarrot or PyCaribbean, etc. And of the ones that really said specifically PyCar, many of them were for something totally unrelated by the same name. One was close, but it was for Raspberry Pi.

So, do you have links to a relatively recent usable version of PyCar?


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## khlae (Dec 31, 2016)

Well this is annoying. There's another package called pycar that seems to be some part of a python training boot camp. 

This version appears to be set up for use with a raspberry pi/raspios: GitHub - iTommix/pyCAR: A Car In-Dash build with pure Python on Raspberry Pi
I have not used or tested this so no clue if it will be good for anything. It's a few years old, but that's still relatively new.

In the past I had an x86 windows 10 tablet running foobar2k for music and I just used an HDMI audio splitter dongle to get audio to the head unit. It worked, but I don't like touchscreens.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

Why not use Raspberry Pi type setup. There's tons of stuff. I found can bus reading software, voice control stuff, OBD II control, everything. Use a launcher and bam.


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## rockgod (Jun 2, 2018)

Theslaking said:


> Why not use Raspberry Pi type setup. There's tons of stuff. I found can bus reading software, voice control stuff, OBD II control, everything. Use a launcher and bam.


Mainly ignorance. I've never used a Raspberry Pi. I have no idea what audio software, media players are available. If high quality audio is available. Navigation, etc. But I'm super familiar with Windows. Though I'm not so familiar with using it tablet mode no keyboard on a small screen. That's my big problem.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

I did a pi setup with a keyboard. It does have hifiberry. 

I also tried it with lineage os and dual boot windows.


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## khlae (Dec 31, 2016)

rockgod said:


> Mainly ignorance. I've never used a Raspberry Pi. I have no idea what audio software, media players are available. If high quality audio is available. Navigation, etc. But I'm super familiar with Windows. Though I'm not so familiar with using it tablet mode no keyboard on a small screen. That's my big problem.


Since a raspberry pi is arm, there isn't a supported version of windows that will run on it today. But it totally runs linux, which should have all the other bits you want figured out. It's trivial enough to have firefox and chromium on linux, so even though I don't know of a map app that's linux native, you can theoretically run bing/google maps in a browser. You'll need to buy a high quality USB sound card for high quality audio or split it off the HDMI port (I think it supports HDMI audio...)

There's nothing stopping you from getting an equivalent linux install in a virtual machine to just start familiarizing yourself with the list of music players and whatnot.


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## CCole (Sep 9, 2020)

Check out Roon. Lossless media player. Personally i run a Sonos Port that gives me access to streaming services. I have a 500Gb usb with my personal collection plugged into my LTE moden/router then point the Sonos Port at it for playback. Any PC, table, phone can run the Sonos software. 

What are your overall goals with the PC? I gathered local media and GPS.


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## Theslaking (Oct 8, 2013)

With lineage you can just use the Google maps Android app. Whatever android app you want.


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