Hello Everyone!
I recently found my BeagleBone Black in my electronics box and am considering using it to create a digital speedometer, much like the one’s in most modern cars, for a fun dune buggy project I plan on working on this summer 
Most of the details have been considered, however, I still have a few questions/concerns with the BBB.
Quick Overview:
I plan on creating a Qt Project using Qt Creator on Windows that will handle the graphics, such as the gauges and indicators. This project will eventually be copied into a deployable Linux file for the BBB to run quickly after being powered on.
Questions:
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How can the boot times for the BBB be significantly reduced? I am currently using a Debian 8.4 4GB LXQT image booting from eMMC, which I’m guessing came from the factory and isn’t optimized yet. It’s important that the speedometer and other indicators are available to the driver as quickly as possible. I’ve seen mentions of the IoT images being much faster, however, this leads to the next question.
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Do the IoT images have certain peripherals, such as video and graphics that are in the LXQT versions? I’ll need the 24 LCD_DATA pins listed in the manual to connect to a display, as well as the graphics acceleration (SGX/Power VR) to help out with the 2D graphics.
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If these peripherals are not in the IoT images, can they be installed? How so?
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Are there performance monitoring tools that can show how hard the BBB is working? If so, are they included/enabled in the IoT images?
I plan on making an educational video of it in action, hopefully in the summer, therefore, please leave any comments or suggestions that could be considered!