Which linux distro for robot?

[debu]

Hey Guys!

I've been working on a high end robot in my spare time for a while now. So far I've been using Windows CE 6.0 as the OS on my ARM9 platform, but due to some reasons (more on that here (clickie) (http://debusinnovations.blogspot.com/2010/05/quick-update-linux-or-ce6.html)), I'm planning to move my code to Linux. Now, I'm having a hard time deciding whether to go for: OpenEmbedded or Qtopia (I think it's called QTextended now). I compiled both from source this weekend and have been playing around and can't decide which to pick, personally I find Qtopia is better documented but OE has a bigger fan base. I figured I'd ask the community what their opinion is.

Regards,

Debu :)

[vikas]

Im a OE fan, never liked QT as not a GUI person.

I usually strip the system off XWindows(everything GUI ) all together to increase speed , as most robots do not really need a GUI.

Both look good to me though. QT based would be better if you wanted to build GUI for touch screen , cause GTK is a Pain to work with.

Why not use C++ for GPIO on WinCE . i love C# too , C and C++ make me work too much for simple tasks.

[debu]

@vikas: I've located a distro of OE with Qtopia on X. Going to try and build it this weekend, I love how much community support OE has! The problem with C# is that the I/O is extremely slow. I'm getting 30Khz IO on a 500MHz system, my OV9650 camera module gives 1 - 0.75 fps, without any algorithm (extra Image processing, I'm using a Bayesian color tracking). I'm using a GUI for setting end user parameters in my system. Unfortunately, like you I find GTK is too much work, QT makes life almost as simple as C# but has all the advantages of C++.

Regards,

Debu :)

[Vivek]

"ROS, Willow Garage's software platform, stands for two things: Robot Operating System, a loose analogy to a computer operating system, and Robot Open Source. It is completely open source (BSD) and free for others to use, change and commercialize upon "
http://www.willowgarage.com/pages/software/ros-platform