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Automotive Grade Linux Launches New Expert Group Led by Toyota

74 points by teleforce 2y ago

dgfitz 2y ago
Is this like the Linux nvidia driver package? Totally open source, except for the interesting parts?
- h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 2y ago
  The AGL distribution is more like an SDK, as it's a fork of Yocto embedded Linux which focusses on building/cross-compiling to a specified target architecture and creating the firmware images. I guess the difference of AGL is that they implemented kernel mods so that they can guarantee ASIL-A/B/C/D spec compliant behavior which was the deal breaker when vendors were considering an RT Linux kernel over e.g. QNX (which focusses heavily on ISO 26262 compliance).
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    I am quite familiar with yocto, I did not realize that it was the toolchain used. Thank you for the information. I should write a blog about yocto sometime, I have many thoughts.
metalliqaz 2y ago
Am I the only one who hears "Software Defined Vehicles" and thinks, "wow, these companies really have entirely lost touch with what everyday people need and/or want" ?
- Glyptodon 2y ago
  I'm half convinced the right company could make a decent hybrid small or tiny vehicle (like Fiat 500 size or Mini size at most) for under $15k given Ford apparently was or is fine making hybrid Mavericks for like $26k and only raised the price because dealers and lack of competitive forces. Though the prices of three wheelers (often more than a Maverick) suggest maybe I'm wrong.
  - jillesvangurp 2y ago
    Where's the fun in that when consumers happily pay twice as much? There's no question you can make decent cars under 10K$. There are lots of those on the market in China. Most of them are pure electric of course because they are good enough, super simple to build, and inherently cheaper to make than anything hybrid. If you are competing on price, cutting cost like that is what you do.
  - nickserv 2y ago
    Fiat 500 and Mini Cooper are certainly not tiny. I mean the originals from the 70's yeah but the new ones are huge and bloated in comparison. Anyway such tiny vehicles do exist in Europe and Asia. The Citroën Ami (the new EV one) comes to mind in Europe, where it's had some success, but is still kinda expensive for what it is.
  - gessha 2y ago
    Those cars already exist, look at all the cars produced for the Indian market.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Considering Windows and then iOS were smashing surprise success stories, vehicles defined by software probably is barking up the right tree. The problem is whether the barking is effective.
- cyberax 2y ago
  No, people actually want feature-rich vehicles. Pretty much nobody outside of corporate actors is buying "bare" cars. And software doesn't actually cost that much. Just look at the Chinese market.
  - bboygravity 2y ago
    I don't think that's necesairily true for HN people? I regularly get mind-blown by the number of anti-features of modern cars v.s. my 32 y/o Camry. Some that come to mind: no physical buttons, no right/possibility to repair the car yourself, can't replace the car stereo by something else, extremely slow unusable navigation systems even in 2024 models (I just use my smartphone and put it where the screen would be in a modern car), beeping when not wearing seatbelt even at 5 km/hr on a parking lot, data plans/simcards to enable car spyware, extremely expensive tires with (broken) pressure sensors in them, headlights made of plastic instead of glass that get ugly after a couple of years, use of rusting materials instead of aluminum for body, active suspension systems that are extremely expensive to service, tons of unnecessary electronics that will break as the car gets slightly older and extremely expensive to service. I could go on and on.
    - VariousPrograms 2y ago
      The first time I drove some new-ish Toyota that displayed a tap-to-dismiss advertisement for the navigation subscription every single time you started it up, I knew I would never own one of these smartphones on wheels.
    - vv_ 2y ago
      > no physical buttons New cars are reintroducing physical buttons again. > no right/possibility to repair the car yourself Unless you're talking about electric vehicles, this isn't true. You can buy diagnostic equipment and do the repairs yourself on most modern cars. > can't replace the car stereo by something else Huh? > extremely slow unusable navigation systems even in 2024 models That's why you don't buy a car without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. It's especially good on newer vehicles as there are integrations with the dashboard and HUD too. > beeping when not wearing seatbelt even at 5 km/hr on a parking lot This is because of government regulation. > data plans/simcards to enable car spyware You're not obligated to buy them. I don't think their software package is good enough to warrant such a purchase, but if they would be able to bring it up to what aftermarket guys are offering it would be a great addition. > extremely expensive tires with (broken) pressure sensors in them Huh? > headlights made of plastic instead of glass that get ugly after a couple of years You can restore them fairly easily. It's funny you ignore that the same issue happened to old cars too, on top of the fact their headlights were horrible to begin with. > use of rusting materials instead of aluminum for body This is partly because of regulation and partly because of cost-cutting. > active suspension systems that are extremely expensive to service Buy an expensive high-performance vehicle and it'll be costly to service. > tons of unnecessary electronics that will break as the car gets slightly older and extremely expensive to service The regulatory environment has changed significantly. Without these sensors you'd have a very inefficient or very slow car. Furthermore, the vast majority of these sensors you can change yourself.
- froh 2y ago
  imnsho it's a shiny misnomer for software dependent vehicle. cars today need software as much as they need a drive train and wheels.
broknbottle 2y ago
Soon kubernetes will be running on a Toyota Prius near you
- toppy 2y ago
  F-16 aircraft is doing it already: https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubernetes-and-istio-on-an-f-16-in-45-days/ https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubern...
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    The moment where I had to scroll up to see if this was posted on 1st of April.
- supriyo-biswas 2y ago
  We're already doing that: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/running-containers-cars https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/running-containers-cars
  - fulafel 2y ago
    That's just Podman.
- andrewstuart2 2y ago
  Honestly you might be surprised how similar to a small homelab a modern/near future day vehicle really is. Source: currently working at VWAG.
  - bboygravity 2y ago
    What's a small homelab?
    - lawik 2y ago
      The start of a bigger and more expensive homelab.
mmooss 2y ago
When does market competitors collaborating on FOSS become anti-competitive, collusion, etc.? If Apple and Google collaborated on a FOSS smartphone OS that both used, that would seem obviously illegal. What if the collaborated on the kernel only? What about the screen UI only? In a way that seems worse, but engineering-wise it's less significant than the kernel. A security subsystem? Some drivers? Keyboards? I'm not sure how that applies to these automakers. While none of Apple's or Google's market power, as far as I know, and while an OS is less significant to a car than it is to a smartphone, possibly, I'd be surprised if they all can ship cars with the same OS. Where and how is the line drawn?
- lvturner 2y ago
  Would it? Especially as it's FOSS - rising ship raises all tides and all that. If it was behind closed doors, then yes. (Usual IANAL a lawyer disclaimer, and I don't mean my comment to shoot yours down - think there is merit in further discussion here!)
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > Especially as it's FOSS - rising ship raises all tides and all that. That's anti-competitive, at least in many ways. I doubt Ford could freely give GM some highly profitable technology to help GM's profits; Ford should maximize its advantage. OTOH, there are industry standards - but those could be defined by performance or they could possibly be for (non-competitive?) aspects like safety.
    - nhinck2 2y ago
      It's anti-anti-competitive, they aren't only giving it to GM. Similarly Volvo giving away seat belt designs was not anti-competitive and neither would this.
    - lvturner 2y ago
      Given the results are given to all and open to changes from all - I'm not sure how this is anti-competitive? Do you mean a scenario where-by it's tuned to run on only hardware that is controlled by the vested parties, effectively locking out other players on the hardware level, while strengthening the desirability of said hardware by leveraging a greater number of software engineers under a somewhat false premise?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
p0w3n3d 2y ago
Out of context, I rembember someone creating cloud architecture (kubernetes etc) to emulate 8-bit NES/Atari, or something like that. It was really funny... Especially because CPU ticks were requests
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  Someone needs to make an x86 version of it and then run Kubernetes on it.
  - p0w3n3d 2y ago
    I've found it! https://blog.davetcode.co.uk/post/21st-century-emulator/ https://blog.davetcode.co.uk/post/21st-century-emulator/ > In 1974 when the 8080 was released it achieved a staggering 2MHz. Our new modern, containerised, cloud first design doesn’t quite achieve that in it’s initial iteration. As can be seen from the screenshot above, space invaders as deployed onto an AKS cluster runs at ~1KHz which gives us ample time for debugging I wonder how much does it cost to run a space invaders game on AWS
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Hilift 2y ago
Translation: We have a new caste of operating system user. First there were regular users. Then there were mobile users. Now we have automobile users, which are similar to the second case, except due to driving are even more defenseless against advertisements with malware payloads, captive popup dialogs, and drop down lists you don't want that take up 30% of the display.

74 points by teleforce 2y ago

dgfitz 2y ago

Is this like the Linux nvidia driver package? Totally open source, except for the interesting parts?

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 2y ago
The AGL distribution is more like an SDK, as it's a fork of Yocto embedded Linux which focusses on building/cross-compiling to a specified target architecture and creating the firmware images. I guess the difference of AGL is that they implemented kernel mods so that they can guarantee ASIL-A/B/C/D spec compliant behavior which was the deal breaker when vendors were considering an RT Linux kernel over e.g. QNX (which focusses heavily on ISO 26262 compliance).
- dgfitz 2y ago
  I am quite familiar with yocto, I did not realize that it was the toolchain used. Thank you for the information. I should write a blog about yocto sometime, I have many thoughts.

metalliqaz 2y ago

Am I the only one who hears "Software Defined Vehicles" and thinks, "wow, these companies really have entirely lost touch with what everyday people need and/or want" ?

Glyptodon 2y ago
I'm half convinced the right company could make a decent hybrid small or tiny vehicle (like Fiat 500 size or Mini size at most) for under $15k given Ford apparently was or is fine making hybrid Mavericks for like $26k and only raised the price because dealers and lack of competitive forces. Though the prices of three wheelers (often more than a Maverick) suggest maybe I'm wrong.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  Where's the fun in that when consumers happily pay twice as much? There's no question you can make decent cars under 10K$. There are lots of those on the market in China. Most of them are pure electric of course because they are good enough, super simple to build, and inherently cheaper to make than anything hybrid. If you are competing on price, cutting cost like that is what you do.
- nickserv 2y ago
  Fiat 500 and Mini Cooper are certainly not tiny. I mean the originals from the 70's yeah but the new ones are huge and bloated in comparison. Anyway such tiny vehicles do exist in Europe and Asia. The Citroën Ami (the new EV one) comes to mind in Europe, where it's had some success, but is still kinda expensive for what it is.
- gessha 2y ago
  Those cars already exist, look at all the cars produced for the Indian market.
Dalewyn 2y ago
Considering Windows and then iOS were smashing surprise success stories, vehicles defined by software probably is barking up the right tree. The problem is whether the barking is effective.
cyberax 2y ago
No, people actually want feature-rich vehicles. Pretty much nobody outside of corporate actors is buying "bare" cars. And software doesn't actually cost that much. Just look at the Chinese market.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  I don't think that's necesairily true for HN people? I regularly get mind-blown by the number of anti-features of modern cars v.s. my 32 y/o Camry. Some that come to mind: no physical buttons, no right/possibility to repair the car yourself, can't replace the car stereo by something else, extremely slow unusable navigation systems even in 2024 models (I just use my smartphone and put it where the screen would be in a modern car), beeping when not wearing seatbelt even at 5 km/hr on a parking lot, data plans/simcards to enable car spyware, extremely expensive tires with (broken) pressure sensors in them, headlights made of plastic instead of glass that get ugly after a couple of years, use of rusting materials instead of aluminum for body, active suspension systems that are extremely expensive to service, tons of unnecessary electronics that will break as the car gets slightly older and extremely expensive to service. I could go on and on.
  - VariousPrograms 2y ago
    The first time I drove some new-ish Toyota that displayed a tap-to-dismiss advertisement for the navigation subscription every single time you started it up, I knew I would never own one of these smartphones on wheels.
  - vv_ 2y ago
    > no physical buttons New cars are reintroducing physical buttons again. > no right/possibility to repair the car yourself Unless you're talking about electric vehicles, this isn't true. You can buy diagnostic equipment and do the repairs yourself on most modern cars. > can't replace the car stereo by something else Huh? > extremely slow unusable navigation systems even in 2024 models That's why you don't buy a car without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. It's especially good on newer vehicles as there are integrations with the dashboard and HUD too. > beeping when not wearing seatbelt even at 5 km/hr on a parking lot This is because of government regulation. > data plans/simcards to enable car spyware You're not obligated to buy them. I don't think their software package is good enough to warrant such a purchase, but if they would be able to bring it up to what aftermarket guys are offering it would be a great addition. > extremely expensive tires with (broken) pressure sensors in them Huh? > headlights made of plastic instead of glass that get ugly after a couple of years You can restore them fairly easily. It's funny you ignore that the same issue happened to old cars too, on top of the fact their headlights were horrible to begin with. > use of rusting materials instead of aluminum for body This is partly because of regulation and partly because of cost-cutting. > active suspension systems that are extremely expensive to service Buy an expensive high-performance vehicle and it'll be costly to service. > tons of unnecessary electronics that will break as the car gets slightly older and extremely expensive to service The regulatory environment has changed significantly. Without these sensors you'd have a very inefficient or very slow car. Furthermore, the vast majority of these sensors you can change yourself.
froh 2y ago
imnsho it's a shiny misnomer for software dependent vehicle. cars today need software as much as they need a drive train and wheels.

broknbottle 2y ago

Soon kubernetes will be running on a Toyota Prius near you

toppy 2y ago
F-16 aircraft is doing it already: https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubernetes-and-istio-on-an-f-16-in-45-days/ https://thenewstack.io/how-the-u-s-air-force-deployed-kubern...
- wiseowise 2y ago
  The moment where I had to scroll up to see if this was posted on 1st of April.
supriyo-biswas 2y ago
We're already doing that: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/running-containers-cars https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/running-containers-cars
- fulafel 2y ago
  That's just Podman.
andrewstuart2 2y ago
Honestly you might be surprised how similar to a small homelab a modern/near future day vehicle really is. Source: currently working at VWAG.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  What's a small homelab?
  - lawik 2y ago
    The start of a bigger and more expensive homelab.

mmooss 2y ago

When does market competitors collaborating on FOSS become anti-competitive, collusion, etc.? If Apple and Google collaborated on a FOSS smartphone OS that both used, that would seem obviously illegal. What if the collaborated on the kernel only? What about the screen UI only? In a way that seems worse, but engineering-wise it's less significant than the kernel. A security subsystem? Some drivers? Keyboards? I'm not sure how that applies to these automakers. While none of Apple's or Google's market power, as far as I know, and while an OS is less significant to a car than it is to a smartphone, possibly, I'd be surprised if they all can ship cars with the same OS. Where and how is the line drawn?

lvturner 2y ago
Would it? Especially as it's FOSS - rising ship raises all tides and all that. If it was behind closed doors, then yes. (Usual IANAL a lawyer disclaimer, and I don't mean my comment to shoot yours down - think there is merit in further discussion here!)
- mmooss 2y ago
  > Especially as it's FOSS - rising ship raises all tides and all that. That's anti-competitive, at least in many ways. I doubt Ford could freely give GM some highly profitable technology to help GM's profits; Ford should maximize its advantage. OTOH, there are industry standards - but those could be defined by performance or they could possibly be for (non-competitive?) aspects like safety.
  - nhinck2 2y ago
    It's anti-anti-competitive, they aren't only giving it to GM. Similarly Volvo giving away seat belt designs was not anti-competitive and neither would this.
  - lvturner 2y ago
    Given the results are given to all and open to changes from all - I'm not sure how this is anti-competitive? Do you mean a scenario where-by it's tuned to run on only hardware that is controlled by the vested parties, effectively locking out other players on the hardware level, while strengthening the desirability of said hardware by leveraging a greater number of software engineers under a somewhat false premise?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

p0w3n3d 2y ago

Out of context, I rembember someone creating cloud architecture (kubernetes etc) to emulate 8-bit NES/Atari, or something like that. It was really funny... Especially because CPU ticks were requests

Nextgrid 2y ago
Someone needs to make an x86 version of it and then run Kubernetes on it.
- p0w3n3d 2y ago
  I've found it! https://blog.davetcode.co.uk/post/21st-century-emulator/ https://blog.davetcode.co.uk/post/21st-century-emulator/ > In 1974 when the 8080 was released it achieved a staggering 2MHz. Our new modern, containerised, cloud first design doesn’t quite achieve that in it’s initial iteration. As can be seen from the screenshot above, space invaders as deployed onto an AKS cluster runs at ~1KHz which gives us ample time for debugging I wonder how much does it cost to run a space invaders game on AWS

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Hilift 2y ago

Translation: We have a new caste of operating system user. First there were regular users. Then there were mobile users. Now we have automobile users, which are similar to the second case, except due to driving are even more defenseless against advertisements with malware payloads, captive popup dialogs, and drop down lists you don't want that take up 30% of the display.