first time user, in need of a light distro that can play a video on loop!

[MKingery]

just to get it all out of the way, im a mac user at heart, with a pc for gaming... so i figure its time to at least take a step into linux, although, probably not for the reasons you all are hoping for

for a art project im working on i want a computer hanging from the ceiling, playing a time lapse video that my macbook pro has been shooting, every 5 minutes for the past 3 weeks. i just picked up two old computers from a school auction but they are empty husks and i need an OS (obviously)

the primary computer i'll be working with (unless it dies) is a gateway, Pentium 3 running at 800mhz with 256mb of ram. all i need is something light weight enough that i can run said video on loop using vlc or whatever application you all would suggest!

my primary question is what distro would serve me best on such a humble task, and also, how do i go about getting it installed?

historically im fairly fond of the apple solution of me never messing around with stuff, but i have installed xp, and subsequently reinstalled it when it went tits up... i just need a compass heading on where to start!

[sizeablebigfoot]

Well if your not interested in changing to Linux on any kind of permanent basis I would recommend a live cd distro. There are many out there to choose from and most if not all would be able to play video. My personal preference would be slax but you will have to check different system requirements to see what will suit you.

The best thing about a live cd is that it requires no installation. In fact I'm not sure if you even need a hard drive. It's an os that runs straight from a cd with no installation at all.

I hope this helps and I wish you luck on your art project.

[MKingery]

Well if your not interested in changing to Linux on any kind of permanent basis I would recommend a live cd distro. There are many out there to choose from and most if not all would be able to play video. My personal preference would be slax but you will have to check different system requirements to see what will suit you.

The best thing about a live cd is that it requires no installation. In fact I'm not sure if you even need a hard drive. It's an os that runs straight from a cd with no installation at all.

I hope this helps and I wish you luck on your art project.

if i run the OS off of a live cd, how will that be effected if the computer in question is hanging from the ceiling at an odd angle? i'll probably have the tower hanging to the side at 45 degrees with the side open and a few dummy components hanging out. also, if the cd rom were to work at that angle, how than would i get the movie onto the box? flash drive? i was just going to burn it to a cd and rip it from there :/

[sizeablebigfoot]

hi again,

well I cant be sure about whether or not hanging the cd rom drive at a 45 degree angle will be a problem or not as this would depend on the cd rom drive you have. I know there are many cd rom drives out there that can work at 90 degrees, but I have lost many a cd from turning a computer on when its on its side. If all else fails you could always unscrew the cd rom drive out of the case (while still keeping it attached to the motherboard and psu) and rigging it up inside the case, somewhere where it would be horizontal (or you might be able to have the cd rom dive as one of the components hanging out of the side, just as long as you keep it horizontal).

If you do get the live cd to work there are many ways to get the video onto the computer. usb stick, internal hard drive, portable hard drive, a second cd drive, Ethernet connection (lan), internet connection, probably flash drive and possabily onto the ram if it fits.

The best way to move forward on this would be to burn a live cd (I'd suggest "slax" but you'd have to check the system requirements, especially the mac compatibility.) and see if everything works the way you want it to.

[mkill]

I suggest using Puppy Linux. It is very very lightweight. It is all together 60 - 90 mb and when you boot it, it loads totally in ram, freeing up your drive to load the movie on. You don't even need a hard drive for it. I think you said you have 256 mb of ram in your pentium III right? That should be more than enough. It is made to run machines from that era and I believe it comes with some codecs out of the box so I think it should be able to play your movie file. It is actually the only distro that works right out of the box on my machine.

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Mkill

[MKingery]

I suggest using Puppy Linux. It is very very lightweight. It is all together 60 - 90 mb and when you boot it, it loads totally in ram, freeing up your drive to load the movie on. You don't even need a hard drive for it. I think you said you have 256 mb of ram in your pentium III right? That should be more than enough. It is made to run machines from that era and I believe it comes with some codecs out of the box so I think it should be able to play your movie file. It is actually the only distro that works right out of the box on my machine.

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.

Mkill

how would that stand to a loss in power? i would need something that would automatically reboot and start playing said video with out any intervention... but i really really do like the sound of it, and once i figure out what kinda ram both of these computers i got have, i'll scrap the others for the better one

ninja edit, i have a gateway e-3400 and e-4200

[mkill]

Hmmm... I don't know about that one. I'm not sure about the power loss thing. As far as it playing the movie right when it boots up that is a matter of writing some script to tell it to play it when it boots. That is completely out of my league. I know you can remaster the puppy live-cd so that it would include both the movie file and the script for boot up so that would be the only cd you need. But that is about as far as my advice goes.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpfull.

Mkill

[er0c13]

I have a hard time suggesting anything other than Debian which has so far proved to be the best OS for me. But thats a matter of preference. The beauty of linux is you can write a script where on boot vlc will load automatically and begin playback on loop. I don't know how to write that myself, but I'm sure its possible. If you manage to get that accomplished, I would install the basics of any distro out there with no GUI, then have the loop set up to auto play on boot. ，