SAABLIN Docu
Why ?
Main ideas why I created saablin player:
- I would like to have hundreds albums in-car
- I would like to use steering wheel, head unit and SID buttons to control player
- I would like to show id3 tags and audio player info on SID
- I would like to have original radio installed
I started to think about that, and I realized that mp3 flash or hd player connected to radio line-in will not have functions which I want. Replace original saab radio is also not so good idea, because I like it. Non original radio can't use steering wheel buttons and SID, and also new radio can be easy stolen here in Prague :-) During this time I found Tomi Liljemark page about saab can bus reverse-engineering and I got idea to use that info to create audio player based on mini-itx atom board. So big thanks to TOMI. Because I am working about nine years as Linux admin, decision was easy, player must be open and Linux must be used. I found some project on the web about CAN bus, but they joined to CAN bus from windows, so it was for me challenge to get SAAB CAN bus run on Linux. Thanks to socket-can developers, to create CAN implementation for Linux kernel, and also with included driver for Lawicel canusb device.
When ?
It seems that saablin is really simple player with basic functions and it's true, but it was a lot of work to get it done.
It takes me whole winter with reading, testing, debugging, preparing hw and searching web for right information, and sitting in SAAB 9-5 Aero with notebook, of course not every day :-)
On other side it was for me relaxation and inspiration, and I learned a lot of thinks.