So last week I bought myself a Raspberry Pi with the intent of fitting it into my car.
The idea is to have a multi function entertainment unit running XBMC, with sat nav/gps, music, video (for the kids) a web browser and bluetooth for hands free, all of which will be accessible from the home menu using Advanced Launcher. However, it seems that hands free phone connection isn't possible.
To start with, I used raspbian for a couple of days to test out various software for my needs, but I decided it would probably be a good idea to try out some of the different distros available for the Pi. I finally settled on Xbian, (available from here) because it's extremely lightweight and fast, and it has the ability to allow for installation of a desktop environment, which is what I will need to run the sat nav and web browser from within XBMC.
So first off, we need to install the LXDE desktop environment. I did this over SSH whilst watching Die Hard :)
First things first, let's update/upgrade
$ sudo apt-get clean
$ sudo apt get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade -y
With that out of the way, we now need to install the LXDE desktop environment
$ echo "Installing xorg...."
$ sudo apt-get install xorg -y
$ echo "Installing LXDE......."
$ sudo apt-get install lxde-core --no-install-recommends -y
To be able to reboot from logout menu we need
$ sudo apt-get install upower -y
$ sudo apt-get install lxde-icon-theme -y
Now we should have a working desktop environment! Awesome, right? Now it's time to install the web browser. I decided to go for Chromium, since it was the first one I came across while researching on how to set up the whole thing, you could use a different one if you want. This part is pretty simple, but will take a while to unpack.
$ sudo apt-get install chromium
This is the part where you can either grab a coffee, get some air, or even swing your cat around the room for short while!... No, not really, just do something to pass a little time
Now with all that installed, we need to see if everything is working so far, so it's over to the TV we go.
At this point, I tried to exit XBMC. However, it just crashed. So I did a quick hard reset and tried again. This time it worked, it just took a while to get it's backside into gear! I was presented with a black wallpapered desktop, which threw me off a little, but then I remembered that this is all it was... A desktop environment with hardly anything installed!
It has the LXTerminal and the Chromium web browser that I previously installed, but that's it! Anyway, I'm happy with the way everything is working so far, so let's carry on.
At this point, I want to set up the advanced launcher to get the web interface functional from inside XBMC. First of all, we will need the Angelscry repository available from here, I downloaded this and saved it to my desktop so it's easier to find. To get back into XBMC, open a terminal and type
$ sudo service xbmc start
So navigate to Settings> addons> Install from zip file, and then locate to where you saved the repository for Advanced Launcher. After a couple of seconds it should then be enabled.
That's all for now, I will post another blog in the next couple of days on setting up the Advanced Launcher. Stay tuned folks!
