I am in the process of moving my GeoCar project into a Raspberry Pi. Searching for a way to have the Raspberry PI lightweight I have been exploring several possibilities. I took the plunge to Arch Linux and it seems to be the right choice for me.
Installed the gpsd (Service that manages the GPS module) and seems to be working. Had a little trouble on setting it to load automatically when boot but it now it is fine.
Arch might not be for everyone but seems to be nice, and boot quickly.
I have also experiment on running the raspberry pi with OpenWrt and liked the option to have the pi be a router. I might use some of that functionality on my project.
I tested out the Raspberry Pi with a lighter adapter and finally got an adapter that provides enough power. Still have not recorded a trip with this, however that would be the next step.
Once I have this recording the trip, will have to do some driving and post a recorded map from it.
If anyone has been tempting on testing out Arch, go ahead and give it a try. All I do is headless so you'll need to type it all on a shell.
Happy Pi! Will post is soon with good progress and information, who knows maybe a video.