OpenElec with support for eGalax touch screen

Hi!

Lately I have tested OpenElec for Raspberry PI and found out that it is very very fast, very very small and also it has some great addons(wifi, bluetooth and more).
Speed/size features on an 512MB RaspberryPI:
  - a complete boot is less than 25 seconds
  - cpu is around 30% load
  - memory used is 32%
  - total system size is less than 300MB

Edit. You can download my build from here(contains eGalax module and XBMC patches).
Username is root and password is openelec. The touch screen calibration file should be put in /storage/touchscreen_axes_calib.

Next, I will guide you through the instructions for building(cross compile) latest OpenElec  for Raspberry PI with touch screen support.
For this tutorial let's assume that you have a Linux machine where you will work.

1. Get the latest OpenElec.
git clone git://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv.git

2. Add kernel touch screen module support.
Open the file OpenELEC.tv/projects/RPI/linux/linux.arm.conf and search for "CONFIG_INPUT_TOUCHSCREEN". Replace the whole text line with the following lines:
CONFIG_INPUT_TOUCHSCREEN=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_COMPOSITE=m
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_EGALAX=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_PANJIT=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_3M=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_ITM=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_ETURBO=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_GUNZE=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_DMC_TSC10=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_IRTOUCH=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_IDEALTEK=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_GENERAL_TOUCH=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_GOTOP=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_JASTEC=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_ELO=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_E2I=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_ZYTRONIC=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_ETT_TC45USB=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_NEXIO=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_EASYTOUCH=y

3. Fix ppl version in OpenElec.
Open the file OpenELEC.tv/packages/toolchain/math/ppl/meta and change PKG_VERSION from "1.1pre9" to "1.1pre10"

4. Put touch screen calibration file into the system.
Navigate to folder OpenELEC.tv/projects/RPI/ and create the file usr/share/eGalaxCalibration/touchscreen_axes_calib. This file should have the following contents:
calib_x_d=-21;calib_x_fact=0.658097686;calib_y_d=-50;calib_y_fact=0.408626561;swap_axes=0;click_confines=8
To set up these values please visit this post(at section 4).

5. Put XBMC 12.2 patch.
Get my latest patch from here, rename it to xbmc-300-eGalaxPatch.patch and put it in the folder OpenELEC.tv/packages/mediacenter/xbmc/patches/12.2-18397e1

6. Build OpenElec.
Navigate to OpenElec folder and type:
PROJECT=RPi ARCH=arm make -j3
-j3 option is to use parallel build(if you have more than one cpu's set this number as nb_cpus+1). This option will speed up the build process.
The build process will take couple of hours, but you have o come back once(in the first 10 minutes) and press ENTER for the kernel touch screen modifications to be approved.

7. Install or Update your OpenElec card.
Go to OpenElec build instructions page for RPI and follow the "Install instructions" chapter.

Have fun!

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Car PC project(August 2013 update)

This is an update for my CarPC project.
You can download the latest image from here (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)

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