For me, a deciding factor in whether to purchase an empeg will be the openness. I've been interested since last year and with each delay my enthusiasm has decreased. At this point I feel that for $1000+ I can change CDs manually. The only reason I'm still paying any attention to the empeg is that it is really a Linux based in car computer. If I can really use it as a full fledged programmable, configurable, in car computer I'll gladly buy one.

Unfortunately, the empeg web site really doesn't provide much technical detail. The newsletters mention ideas for what could be done with it, but no details. Has anyone seen any definite information to show that the empeg isn't just a closed box? If the unit is really shipping, I'd expect to see all the GPL code posted to their web site. If the UI is in Python I'd expect that I could download the UI code and run it on my own Linux box. I wouldn't expect it to be fully functional, but it ought to be at least possible to get a feel for what the UI looks like and an idea of how it can be enhanced.

Very few "user friendly" interfaces on consumer electronics appeal to my preferences. Configurability and reprogramability are the things that would get me to buy an empeg.

I'm getting it for about the same purpose.

I would love to make it interface with my car alarm, door locks, speedomitor, and that kind of stuff. I would of liked it to have a ethernet jack on it, but I guess a usb ethernet card will have to do.

It would just be good to have it say "Hello Patrick" when I open the door, and "Hang on" when I start moving after I start up the car.

In a different thread hugo said that it is just acting as a USB device, so no usb devices :(

Keith Kemp

Kernel patches have been in the SA1100 linux tree for a while - 2.2.9 ones will be there soon.

Not all of the code is GPL: the player code most definitely isn't, as some of it is licenced. The source that *will* be released is for things like the transfer protocols, and the UI. The UI is currently *not* in python - we had to back out of this in the first release due to lack of time: we were just pouring weeks down the tubes due to problems with Python in a multi-threaded environment - so that in the first instance, UI mods will most likely be done as dynamically linked C++.

The unit *is* open: you can pump the hard disk with either of two disksets (and swap when you like) - player (locked-down player, as supplied) or developer (shell, zmodem, gzip, tar, this sort of thing). With a host linux box you can cross-compile code for the unit and then play with it.

Remember we're a small company, and software documentation takes time, as does getting code ready for release (espeically when it's source). It'll come!

Hugo

well, I guess I will have to write a network driver to work over the usb, so we just have it pluged into another computer usb port, and run it over that.

Just use the USB as a really fast connection for a ppp link.