'd really appreciate some help with a project I am about to embark on. I want to build a scanner with an LCD monitor that will hopefully scan an image and then maybe manipulate it and display it on an attached LCD monitor. I want to go down the route of installing linux on a small PC board and to then attach an interface from the PC board that will link up to specific hardware parts and control them. I understand this means I will require a graphics card to display to the LCD monitor and so on.
My question is what flavour of linux do I go for ? I guess it has to be minimalist ? I really want the OS to be hidden from the user. Secondly I was wondering how will I install linux so it boots and then goes straight to the application that will manipulate the scanner ? Thirdly although C is normally used to control hardware I was wondering if I can manipulate hardware using java's JNI because I would also like to write the applications that will manipulate the scanned image in java. Will this be possible or should i use C/ C++ through out. Any help would be appreciated, thanks Paul