Raspberry PI 2 CarPC

Hi,

Here are the updates I have recently worked on:
 - Raspberry PI 2 support
 - KODI 14.1
 - linux kernel 3.18.7-v7 with touchscreen drivers(thanks to Chris Coat)
 - radio backend fixed to support RDS RadioText and better RDS StationName
 - interrupts are coming from WiringPI C library instead of Python via sockets
 - new skin from Doru(new Skin Settings page)
 - CarPC folder now lives in /opt/ instead of /home/pi/
 - boot process schematic
 - code is moving to github(https://github.com/aistodorescu)

You can install the build using one of the two tutorials:
 - advanced users guide
 - beginner users guide (thanks to Piero Longega)

WARNING!
This installer was tested on Raspbian Jessie from February 2015. You can get the working version from here: http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/raspbian-2015-02-17/

Please don't forget about the forum for any comments.

Some screenshots:

Home screen

 

FM radio with RDS

Kodi Settings page

Skin Settings

Skin Settings - Buttons

Enjoy and keep your eyes on the road while driving!

Raspberry PI CarPC January 2015 updates

Hi,
Here are the updates I have recently worked on:
 - migration to KODI stable 14.0
 - Raspbian OS from 24 december 2013
 - linux kernel 3.18.1 with touchscreen drivers
 - updates to Radio and Navigation addons

You can install the build using the tutorial link on the right side of the blog. Please don't forget about the forum for any comments.

Enjoy the screenshots and Happy new Year!

openCarPC controller v1.1

Hi!

In a previous post I have explained how I have interfaced Raspberry PI GPIOs with XBMC, using buttons and rotary encoders.
I have reworked the application which controls this and now there are more features available.
You can use this post to set up the hardware connections between Raspberry PI GPIO connector and as many buttons and rotary encoders as you like(or you have room for on the RPI GPIO pins).

At this moment my setup has 2 rotary encoders, each of them having also a push button.
You can use this tutorial to set up your car steering wheel controls to control this system.

XBMC builtin functions are now supported.
For a list of available XBMC builtin functions have a look at this link.

Groups of commands are supported.
Commands should be separated by the '+' character. For example:
xbmcbuiltin_PlayerControl(previous)+KB_minus
will execute both commandsa t once when the corresponding button is pressed, or when the rotary encoder is turned in the correct direction.

Multiple groups of commands are supported.
Groups of commands should be separated by the '>' character.
When the action is triggered(button pressed or rotary encoder rotated in the correct direction) the commands are executed consecutively.
For example:
xbmcbuiltin_ActivateWindow(Music)>xbmcbuiltin_ActivateWindow(Videos)
When you press the button for the first time XBMC will switch to Music window. When you press it the second time XBMC will switch to Videos window and when pressed again, XBMC will switch back to Music window.

Note:
The groups of commands were designed to support multiple programs control. At this moment I am working on external radio support so you can set the volume of radio and volume in XBMC at the same time. This will be available in a future post.
This doesn't mean that you can use multiple XBMC commands at once.

To download the latest version, please checkout the Downloads link from the right of the blog, in the openCarPC tools folder. The current version is 1.1.

Have fun!

Car PC project(August 2013 update)

This is an update for my CarPC project.
You can download the latest image from the link on the top right corner of this blog(username:'pi', password:'a').

The main features are:
Hardware:

• Raspberry PI model B(256MB ram): ~35$
• 7 inch display with touchscreen for car rear view camera, from eBay(touchscreen is connected to one USB port): 80$
• HDMI male to HDMI male cable(golden plated):20$
• 8GB SDHC class 6 card: 20$
• 12V(500mA) AC to DC adapter for powering the display
• 5V(1A) microUSB AC to DC converter for powering the PI
• ST22 SkyTraq GPS Receiver Module: 25$
• Reverse Camera: 15$

Software:
[Operating System]
    - Raspbian Wheezy 9.February.2013
    - Custom kernel 3.6.11
        - eGalax touch screen module
        - si470x usb radio module
        - snd-usb-audio module

[Media Center]
    - omxplayer
    - XBMC 12.2 Frodo
        - media formats supported:  listed here
        - sources with objects build on 27.July.2013
        - skin: CarPC-touch(download current version)
            - system shutdown button(safely stop xbmc and safely halt)
            - reload skin button
            - switch to camera view button
        - modified spectrum analyzer(OpenGL with no rotation)
        - eGalax touch screen calibrated
        - eGalax touch screen click&drag fix
        - black rectangle behind XBMC removed
        - patch to add getMousePosition feature to xbmcgui module(used to redirect clicks from the Navigation skin page to X11 using xdotool)

[Navigation]
    - Navit build from source
    - Zoom In, Zoom Out buttons
    - Click sent from XBMC to X11 (Navit Window)

GPS Setup
1. Connect GPS module to UART TX, UART RX, GND and 3.3V or on a usb port.
2. If you are using an UART GPS module, as I did, use this tutorial or any other to setup UART communication.
3. Connect GPS to gpsd:
sudo apt-get install gpsd
gpsd /dev/ttyAMA0

Adding maps to Navit
In order to add new maps to Navit, there is a simple process. First, go to Navit Planet Extractor and download your desired area file(this will be a .bin file).
After this, transfer the file to your Raspberry PI in the folder /home/pi/navit_export/build/navit/maps/. Here, you should also update the existing .xml file and add another entry for your new map. My .xml file is looking like this:

<map type="binfile" data="$NAVIT_SHAREDIR/maps/osm_bbox_11.3,47.9,11.7,48.2.bin" />
<map type="binfile" data="$NAVIT_SHAREDIR/maps/osm_bbox_20.3,43.5,29.9,48.4.bin" />

You can rename your .bin files for easier management

Car Modding
I had to relocate my original Radio/CD player in the trunk and keep it set on aux input source. This included buying about 60m of wires and also harness:
1. Metra 71-9003 Bmw Mini Factory Radio OEM Wire Harness
2. Scosche VW03B 2002+ Vw Audi BMW Radio Stereo Harness

 front without OEM Radio/CD player

trunk with relocated OEM Radio/CD player

Mounted Raspberry PI in the armrest

Safety:
    - The wires are 2mm in diameter with good insulation, resistant at temperature variations
    - I have added fuses(1.5A for the radio, 1A for Raspberry PI, 1A for display, 0.1A for reverse camera trigger, 0.1A for reverse camera video signal)

Bugs:
     - sound pops(will soon disappear by using this hdmi to hdmi and audio splitter)
    - Navigation is behind Video Player -> Navigation isn't visible while playing videos(this isn't a big issue)

CarPC first build

Hi!

After working a lot at my CarPC project I have decided to take a break and post about it.

A short preview is here:

You can download the latest image from my Downloads page in the top right corner of this blog.
If you want to build it by yourself please follow my previous tutorials but replace the three patches with the single patch from here, which is for XBMC12.2. Also read my previous post to find how to calibrate the screen axes.

Features:

• auto start XBMC
• eGalax touch screen support with configurable greater area for touch event(8 pixels)
• improved skin with larger buttons and smooth transitions(link for the skin)
• System Power OFF button
• usbmount enabled(so usb MSD's are plug and play)

The new calibration file contains one more entry: click_confines which defines the area for XBMC to distinguish between click and drag actions(touch moves less than 8 pixels before release than action is click, else the action is drag).

Have fun!
Andrei

Raspberry PI, Raspbian, XBMC and eGalax 7 inch touchscreen

Hello!

I have spent some time lately trying to find a solution to get my 7 inch eGalax touchscreen to work with  Raspbian(Debian Wheezy) in XBMC 12 Frodo and finally got it working as I wanted.

My Setup

• Raspberry PI model B: ~30$
• 7 inch display with touchscreen for car rear view camera, from eBay(touchscreen is connected to one USB port): 80$
• HDMI male to HDMI male connector(from eBay): <2$
• 4GB SDHC class 4 card
• 12V(500mA) AC to DC adapter for powering the display
• 5V(1A) microUSB AC to DC converter for powering the PI
• USB keyboard

Edit:  Download the latest image from the top right corner of this blog(username: pi, password: a).

Here is what you need to do in order to have a system with Raspberry PI, Raspbian OS and XBMC 12 Frodo stable with eGalax touchscreen working correctly(which means axes calibrated and click working with just one tap&release action):


1. Get latest Raspbian image from here and flash it to an SD card.

2. Build your own kernel with eGalax touchscreen support, like in this post(you will only need to replace kernel.img file and /lib/modules and /lib/firmware folders on the SD card).

3. Build XBMC 12 on Raspberry PI using this tutorial.
Note: After downloading XBMC archive, get this archive and unpack it anywhere.
Apply patches to xbmc files:

cd <patches_folder>
patch -p1 <path_to_xbmc>/xbmc/input/linux/LinuxInputDevices.cpp < LinuxInputDevices_cpp.patch
patch -p1 <path_to_xbmc>/xbmc/input/MouseStat.cpp < MouseStat_cpp.patch
patch -p1 <path_to_xbmc>/xbmc/input/MouseStat.h < MouseStat_h.patch

4. Touchscreen calibration.
Create a new file /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib on Raspberry PI. It will contain four values for the axes calibration and one value for swapping axes.
The simplest way to swap axes is to switch the four wires cable plug's orientation which comes from the touchscreen to the touch controller.

Here is how the calibration was done.

the original behavior(no calibration)

In the picture above, we see that "touch panel values frame" differs from "touch panel physical size frame". When we are pressing the touch we are moving in the "touch panel physical size frame" but when the touch screen is not calibrated the arrow from XBMC is in another place.

• "touch panel physical size frame" is the screen starting from (0,0) on the left top corner and going to (width, height) in the right bottom corner.
• "touch panel values frame" is the frame which contains all the number the touch controller is giving.

We see that these frames differs a lot. Our main scope is to overlap the "touch panel values frame" to the "touch panel physical size frame".

In order to do this we need to do three steps(the third one is done in software):
a. Scale the value read from the touch driver x and y) in order to fit 0->width range and respectively 0->height range of the "touch panel physical size frame" the scale value for x axis is:
                       "touch panel physical size frame" width
calib_x_fact = -------------------------------------------------
                            "touch panel values frame" width


                       "touch panel physical size frame" height
calib_y_fact = -------------------------------------------------
                            "touch panel values frame" height

"touch panel values frame" width and height are coming from your XBMC resolution(I have width=1280 and height=720).
"touch panel physical size frame" width and height are a little more trickier to find but nothing hard. In step 2 above, you have calibrated the touchscreen in XFCE. You got some values returned by xinput_calibrator, something like:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier   "calibration"
    MatchProduct    "eGalax Inc. USB TouchController"
    Option    "Calibration"    "1977 32 1893 131"
EndSection

In my case,
"touch panel physical size frame" width is 1977 - 32 = 1945
"touch panel physical size frame" height is 1893 - 131 = 1762
Now, compute the values and put them in /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib file

b. Translate the "touch panel values frame" to the left and up, to match "touch panel physical size frame".
I didn't find a logical method to do this, because we don't know exactly "where is" the "touch panel values frame", so, in order to find calib_x_d and calib_y_d you have to first set them both to zero and then start XBMC. Now, put some sharp pointer on the screen and observe the distances between the cursor on the screen and your pointer's position. Try to approximate these x and y deviations(measured in pixels) and put them in the /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib file.

c. Revert direction of axes. This is done in the software(from patches).

5. Math behind.
To accomplish these transformations the following formula was implemented in the file
xbmc/input/linux/LinuxInputDevices.cpp
pointer.x = value_read.x * calib_x_fact + calib_x_d;
pointer.y = value_read.y * calib_y_fact + calib_y_d;

After I have successfully calibrated the touchscreen I have discovered that single click was not possible from the touchscreen, just double click. After digging through the code, I have found that this was caused by drag action which was triggered because the previous values of the touch were far(more than 5 pixels) from a new press. For example, at the start of the program, cursor is set at 0,0 coordinates; if user is trying to press a button, let's say at 100, 300, the program(XBMC) will calculate the distance between these two points and will find out that this is greater than 5.
Pythagorean theory:
(100-0)x(100-0) + (300 - 0)x(300-0) is greater than 5x5 XBMC will treat this as a drag event.
This drag issue is not caused when you double click, because the previous point in the second click action is very close to the second click point. This also works for mouses, because the previous value of the pointer is always very close to the new value of the pointer(because mouse's pointer drags on the screen and it doesn't jump - so each new value is very close to the previous one).

I have developed an algorithm to avoid this issue:
When the user is pressing the screen(x,y), the touch values are being set to (screen_width+1, screen_height+1 -> outside of the visible screen) just at the first event read(which is BTN_TOUCH PRESS).
After this event, the program will receive multiple X and Y absolute values events. The first two events, one for X and one for Y are used to set the previous X value, respectively previous Y value to the current X respective current Y values. And from now on distance is measured and this is preventing no unwanted drag action.
The user's finger/pointer will not stay at a single point, because the touchscreen's lack of precision, so it will move around 5-6 pixels in x and y directions.
I have also set the click distance to 7. You can change this by changing click_confines value in xbmc/input/MouseStat.h. Originally it was set to 5, but this is not very good for touch screens(I had to click with a sharp pointer and with my nail always, but with a value of 7 I can click with my finger with a slight touch -> really nice).

Enjoy!

Build XBMC Frodo from source in Raspbian on Raspberry PI

Hi!

After struggling couple of days in finding the best way to build XBMC on Raspberry PI I have finally got a working solution(haven't discovered how I can cross-compile it, which would be the best choice).
This takes about 15 hours, on my Raspberry PI model B, but the good news is that 'make' takes about 12 hours, so you don't need to watch it, just come from time to time to see if it is working. Besides the build messages displayed on screen you have the whole logs for rbp_depends, configure, make and make install steps. If anything goes wrong you can investigate these files(the last one reached) and search for the first error

log_1_rbp_depends.log
log_2_configure.log
log_3_make.log
log_4_make_install.log

This tutorial is for Linux Host Machine but it can be easily adapted to any other OS.
Let's get this started!

1. Get the latest Raspbian Wheezy image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads and put it on an SD card:
You have couple of possibilities to do this. In Linux you can use:

sudo dd bs=1M if=raspbian_wheezy_image_path of=/dev/sd_card_path

2. Get XBMC 12 source code from http://xbmc.org/download/. On the Source Code section, download the zip file from where it says: "Stable release sources are available here".
If you get the code from git it will probably get an unstable version, which is the latest code. When I have build from source I have got XBMC 13 alpha 1 which worked, but no addon was working.
Transfer xbmc folder to your /home/pi/ directory or wherever you like.
Now you can plug the card in Raspberry PI and follow the next steps.

Note. The easiest way to do this is via ssh(first, enable it using sudo raspi-config menu), from a computer. Just connect in Terminal using:

ssh pi@x.x.x.x

where x.x.x.x is the ip address of your device. You can get the ip address by typing ifconfig. Then you just copy/paste the commands into Terminal.

3. Set minimum amount of video memory and create a swap partition:

sudo raspi-config

Here you should expand_rootfs, disable overscan, configure_keyboard, change_pass, change_timezone and enable ssh. Select memory_split and enter 16 then restart.

Now, to create a swap partition, use the following:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/pi/swapfile1 bs=1024 count=204800
sudo mkswap /home/pi/swapfile1
sudo chown root:root /home/pi/swapfile1
sudo chmod 0600 /home/pi/swapfile1
sudo swapon /home/pi/swapfile1

The swap file is needed as extra memory for the compiler. This will prevent you from getting errors like:

gcc: internal compiler error: Killed (program cc1)

4. Update the system and install some dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install autotools-dev comerr-dev dpkg-dev libalsaplayer-dev libapt-pkg-dev:armhf libasound2-dev libass-dev:armhf libatk1.0-dev libavahi-client-dev libavahi-common-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libbison-dev:armhf libbluray-dev:armhf libboost1.49-dev \
    libbz2-dev:armhf libc-dev-bin libc6-dev:armhf libcaca-dev libcairo2-dev libcdio-dev libclalsadrv-dev libcrypto++-dev libcups2-dev libcurl3-gnutls-dev \
    libdbus-1-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libdirectfb-dev libdrm-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libelf-dev libenca-dev libept-dev libevent-dev libexpat1-dev libflac-dev:armhf \
    libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libfribidi-dev libgconf2-dev libgcrypt11-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
    libglew-dev:armhf libglewmx-dev:armhf libglib2.0-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libgnutls-dev libgpg-error-dev libgtk2.0-dev libhal-dev \
    libhunspell-dev:armhf libice-dev:armhf libicu-dev libidn11-dev libiso9660-dev libjasper-dev libjbig-dev:armhf libjconv-dev libjpeg8-dev:armhf libkrb5-dev \
    libldap2-dev:armhf libltdl-dev:armhf liblzo2-dev libmad0-dev libmicrohttpd-dev libmodplug-dev libmp3lame-dev:armhf libmpeg2-4-dev libmysqlclient-dev \
    libncurses5-dev libnspr4-dev libnss3-dev libogg-dev:armhf libopenal-dev:armhf libp11-kit-dev libpam0g-dev:armhf libpango1.0-dev libpcre++-dev libpcre3-dev \
    libpixman-1-dev libpng12-dev libprotobuf-dev libpthread-stubs0-dev:armhf libpulse-dev:armhf librtmp-dev libsamplerate0-dev:armhf \
    libsdl-image1.2-dev:armhf libsdl1.2-dev libslang2-dev:armhf libsm-dev:armhf libsmbclient-dev:armhf libspeex-dev:armhf \
    libsqlite3-dev libssh-dev libssh2-1-dev libssl-dev libstdc++6-4.6-dev libtagcoll2-dev libtasn1-3-dev libtiff4-dev libtinfo-dev:armhf libtinyxml-dev \
    libts-dev:armhf libudev-dev libv8-dev libva-dev:armhf libvdpau-dev:armhf libvorbis-dev:armhf libvpx-dev:armhf libwebp-dev:armhf libwibble-dev \
    libx11-dev:armhf libx11-xcb-dev libxapian-dev libxau-dev:armhf libxcb-glx0-dev:armhf libxcb-render0-dev:armhf libxcb-shm0-dev:armhf \
    libxcb1-dev:armhf libxcomposite-dev libxcursor-dev:armhf libxdamage-dev libxdmcp-dev:armhf libxext-dev:armhf libxfixes-dev libxft-dev libxi-dev \
    libxinerama-dev:armhf libxml2-dev:armhf libxmu-dev:armhf libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev:armhf libxslt1-dev libxss-dev:armhf libxt-dev:armhf \
    libxtst-dev:armhf libxxf86vm-dev libyajl-dev libzip-dev linux-libc-dev:armhf lzma-dev mesa-common-dev python-dev python2.7-dev x11proto-composite-dev \
    x11proto-core-dev x11proto-damage-dev x11proto-dri2-dev x11proto-fixes-dev x11proto-gl-dev x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev x11proto-randr-dev \
    x11proto-record-dev x11proto-render-dev x11proto-scrnsaver-dev x11proto-xext-dev x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev xtrans-dev \
    libnfs-dev libplist-dev avahi-daemon zlib1g-dev:armhf swig java-package libafpclient-dev liblockdev1-dev autoconf automake libtool gcc udev openjdk-6-jre \
    cmake g++ libudev-dev build-essential autoconf ccache gawk gperf mesa-utils zip unzip curl

This will take some time depending on your internet speed.

5. Copy libraries headers and create some symlinks for libraries:

sudo cp -R /opt/vc/include/* /usr/include
sudo cp /opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads/* /usr/include/interface/vcos
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so /usr/lib/libEGL.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL.so.1
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL_static.a /usr/lib/libEGL_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL_static.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/lib/libGLESv2.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2.so.2
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2_static.a /usr/lib/libGLESv2_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2_static.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libbcm_host.so /usr/lib/libbcm_host.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libbcm_host.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libbcm_host.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.a /usr/lib/libvchiq_arm.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvchiq_arm.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.so /usr/lib/libvchiq_arm.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvchiq_arm.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.a /usr/lib/libvcos.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvcos.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.so /usr/lib/libvcos.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvcos.so

There is a problem when compiling, with the file /usr/include/interface/vmcs_host/vcgencmd.h which includes the wrong vchost_config.h, so I have created a command to put the right inclusion:

sudo sed -i 's/#include "vchost_config.h"/#include "linux\/vchost_config.h"/' /usr/include/interface/vmcs_host/vcgencmd.h

6. Install taglib, libcec and libshairport.

cd <pah_to_xbmc_dir>
make -C lib/taglib
sudo make -C lib/taglib install
cd <any_directory>
git clone --depth 5 https://github.com/Pulse-Eight/libcec.git
cd libcec
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd <path_to_xbmc_dir>
make -C lib/libshairport
sudo make -C lib/libshairport install

7. Configure and compile XBMC

cd <path_to_xbmc_dir>
export TARGET_SUBARCH="armv6zk"
export TARGET_CPU="arm1176jzf-s"
export TARGET_FLOAT="hard"
export TARGET_FPU="vfp"
export TARGET_FPU_FLAGS="-mfloat-abi=$TARGET_FLOAT -mfpu=$TARGET_FPU"
export TARGET_EXTRA_FLAGS="-Wno-psabi -Wa,-mno-warn-deprecated"
export TARGET_COPT="-Wall -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -O3 -fexcess-precision=fast -ffast-math  -fgnu89-inline"
export TARGET_LOPT="-s -Wl,--as-needed"
export CFLAGS="-march=$TARGET_SUBARCH -mcpu=$TARGET_CPU $TARGET_FPU_FLAGS -mabi=aapcs-linux $TARGET_COPT $TARGET_EXTRA_FLAGS"
export CXXFLAGS="$CFLAGS"
export LDFLAGS="-march=$TARGET_SUBARCH -mtune=$TARGET_CPU $TARGET_LOPT"

Fix some errors:

sed -i 's/USE_BUILDROOT=1/USE_BUILDROOT=0/' tools/rbp/setup-sdk.sh
sed -i 's/TOOLCHAIN=\/usr\/local\/bcm-gcc/TOOLCHAIN=\/usr/' tools/rbp/setup-sdk.sh

Run:

sudo sh tools/rbp/setup-sdk.sh

Fix other errors:

sed -i 's/cd $(SOURCE); $(CONFIGURE)/#cd $(SOURCE); $(CONFIGURE)/' tools/rbp/depends/xbmc/Makefile

Run:

make -C tools/rbp/depends/xbmc/ 2>&1 | tee log_1_rbp_depends.log

Configure:

./configure --prefix=/usr/local --build=arm-linux-gnueabihf \
            --host=arm-linux-gnueabihf --localstatedir=/var/lib \
            --with-platform=raspberry-pi --disable-gl --enable-gles \
            --disable-x11 --disable-sdl --enable-ccache --enable-optimizations \
            --disable-external-libraries --disable-goom --disable-hal \
            --disable-pulse --disable-vaapi --disable-vdpau --disable-xrandr \
            --enable-airplay --disable-alsa --enable-avahi --enable-libbluray \
            --enable-dvdcss --disable-debug --disable-joystick --disable-mid \
            --enable-nfs --disable-profiling --disable-projectm --enable-rsxs \
            --enable-rtmp --disable-vaapi --disable-vdadecoder \
            --disable-external-ffmpeg --enable-optical-drive \
            --enable-player=omxplayer 2>&1 | tee log_2_configure.log

After configuration completes, please run he following command:

sed -i 's/ifeq (1,1)/ifeq (0,1)/' tools/TexturePacker/Makefile

Compile(this will take about 12 hours):

make 2>&1 | tee log_3_make.log

8. Install XBMC 12 in Raspbian.

sudo make install 2>&1 | tee log_4_make_install.log

After this step you have to run raspi-config again and to set video memory to 128 and then restart. Now you should be able to run XBMC using

/usr/local/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin

Note: If you are running via xbmc command, or from XFCE menu->Multimedia->XBMC it will not start. The same command can be used to run XBMC from terminal or from XFCE interface.
In addition you can also install PVR Addons and XVDR addon(but this is not necessary):

cd <any_directory>
git clone --depth 5 git://github.com/opdenkamp/xbmc-pvr-addons.git
cd xbmc-pvr-addons/
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-addons-with-dependencies
sudo make install
cd <any_directory>
git clone git://github.com/pipelka/xbmc-addon-xvdr.git
cd xbmc-addon-xvdr
sh autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
sudo make install

Note
If you want to modify sources after the compilation is completed, you just have to modify them and then run make again, which will build only the affected parts(couple of minutes), but remember to keep the video memory at maximum 32MB when you are building, and also keep the swap partition.

Many thanks to:

• XBIAN forums 
• http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianXBMC (mpthompson)

Adding 7inch display with touchscreen to Raspberry PI

Hi!

First thing I got in mind when seeing Raspberry PI was "car PC project".
The targeted display was 7 inch with touchscreen. I have found a lot of displays on Ebay.

I have got myself one for 85 dollars with free shipping(this; if it is not available any more you can search "reversing driver board hdmi" on ebay and you will find others). The display driver board has hdmi input and an on board resistive touchpanel with usb controller board.

It took less than a month to receive it(in Romania). After unpack, it worked out of the box with Ubuntu 12.10(display + touchpanel) and with Windows, but for Windows I had to install some drivers also received in the package.

I have installed latest Raspbian image on a SD_Card and tried it on my Raspberry PI model B, but the touchpanel didn't show any input. After searching a lot I have decided that I have to recompile the raspbian kernel and add support for touchpanel. This sounded very new to me but it seemed to be an easy task.

First thing, I have run lsusb to see the touch controller type(on RaspberryPI):

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9512 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1c4f:0002 SiGma Micro Keyboard TRACER Gamma Ivory
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0eef:0001 D-WAV Scientific Co., Ltd eGalax TouchScreen

Last device is the touch controller, from eGalax.

Edit: If you don't want to build the kernel by yourself, you can download mine from here. After his, you have to replace file /boot/kernel.img and /lib/firmware and /lib/modules/ on the SD card.

Building a new kernel(in UBUNTU 12.10).
Get kernel sources.

wget https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/archive/rpi-3.6.y.tar.gz
tar -zxvf  rpi-3.6.y.tar.gz

Install some dependencies.

sudo apt-get install git libncurses5 libncurses5-dev qt4-dev-tools build-essential

Install toolchain.
The best way to do the kernel compilation is on a Desktop/Laptop machine, which will be much more fast than on the Raspberry PI. I have did this in Ubuntu 12.10:

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

After download of the kernel archive has finished unpack it and then navigate with terminal to the extracted folder.
Be sure thaat the sources objects are cleaned. Type:

make mrproper

Create a folder for the generated kernel:

mkdir ../kernel

Generate the .config file:

make O=../kernel/ ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- bcmrpi_cutdown_defconfig

Configure the kernel:

make O=../kernel/ ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- xconfig

In the opened window press the | button to collapse all items. Then, navigate to Device Drivers->Input Device Support->TouchScreens and select it. Here, be sure to check also your touch screen controller if it is other than eGalax, or if it is not selected. Now press save.

With the changes being made you can now compile the kernel:

make O=../kernel/ ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- -k -j3

Note: -j3 option from the end means to enable parallel build. The number should be number of cpu cores + 1(I have dual core cpu).

The build took about 20 minutes on my PC. After the build completes, you will have the new kernel in ../kernel folder, created above.

Create the kernel image:

cd ../
git clone git://github.com/raspberrypi/tools.git

Note: You need to have git installed.

Navigate to tools/mkimage and then run:

./imagetool-uncompressed.py ../../kernel/arch/arm/boot/Image

This command will generate the kernel image(kernel.img file).

Build modules:
Go back to the ../kernel/ folder.

mkdir ../modules/
make modules_install ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- INSTALL_MOD_PATH=../modules/

Replace the kernel:
Get latest firmware:

wget https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/archive/next.tar.gz
tar -zxvf next.tar.gz

In the small partition(/boot) do:

• replace /boot/bootcode.bin with firmware-next/boot/bootcode.bin
• replace /boot/kernel.img with the previously created kernel image
• replace /boot/start.elf with firmware-next/boot/start.elf

In the big partition(/root) do:

• replace /lib/firmware with <modules_builded_above_folder>/lib/firmware
• replace /lib/modules with <modules_builded_above_folder>/lib/modules
• replace /opt/vc with firmware-next/hardfp/opt/vc/

Now your card should contain the new image. Safely eject your SD card and then unplug it from the card reader and then put the card in Raspberry PI and start X(startx). Plug the touch controller in one usb and check if you can move the cursor(or you can start with he touch already plugged in).

After I have started X, my touch input was working but the axes were switched and also not calibrated.

Calibration for the touchscreen(in Raspberry PI). 
Note: The next steps are performed in the Raspberry PI's Debian Wheezy. This is a method for calibrating the touchscreen which will work just for Xserver and Xserver based applications.

Install xinput_calibrator.
Install some dependencies:

sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libxext-dev libxi-dev x11proto-input-dev

Download xinput_calibrator somewhere in the Raspberry PI's folder structure.

wget http://github.com/downloads/tias/xinput_calibrator/xinput_calibrator-0.7.5.tar.gz

Unpack it and then navigate to the unpacked folder and then install it using:

./configure
make
sudo make install

After this step you should run xinput_calibrator(from Xserver terminal console: first startx then open console and then run it).

xinput_calibrator

Follow the on screen instructions(touching some points on screen) and after calibration is complete you will receive a message like this:

Calibrating EVDEV driver for "eGalax Inc. USB TouchController" id=8
    current calibration values (from XInput): min_x=1938, max_x=114 and min_y=1745, max_y=341

Doing dynamic recalibration:
    Setting new calibration data: 121, 1917, 317, 1741


--> Making the calibration permanent <--
  copy the snippet below into '/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-calibration.conf'
Section "InputClass"
    Identifier    "calibration"
    MatchProduct    "eGalax Inc. USB TouchController"
    Option    "Calibration"    "121 1917 317 1741"
    Option    "SwapAxes"    "1"
EndSection

For Raspbian you have to create a file:

sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/01-input.conf

Add in this file the content above(starting with Section "InputClass" line) and then save it(ctrl+O).

Note:
Please make sure that you don't have sections like
MatchProduct    "eGalax Inc. USB TouchController"
in other files from /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ folder(highest number files are processed last, thanks to Jasmin).

Now touchscreen should be calibrated and after reboot it will keep the settings.
Once, I had to run xinput_calibration again in order to have the pointer to the desired points. You can update the numbers given by the xinput_calibration utility in the
usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/01-input.conf file in order to have the best calibration at boot.

Soon I will add some pictures.

Andrei