Laptop help

[edible_hat]

I have an old Toshiba Satellite laptop (has a sticker on it saying "designed for Windows ME") which I want to set up to use as a portable media player type thing. Basically I want to install some kind of OS and media player software that can handle .avi files and get some way of copying stuff onto the hard drive (I've confirmed that the DVD drive, USB drive and onboard ethernet work).

Currently it's running Ubuntu 6.something with IceWM as the window manager, playback is still a little laggy.

ah, also the sound card is broken so no need to worry about sound. Everything I plan to play is subtitled.

Any suggestions?

[LostMyMind]

Its probably laggy because it's too slow. Maybe getting more memory for it will improve the playing of movies. But it's unlikely.

[Broomjockey]

Get MPC (or MPlayer, can't remember which is for linux-type systems). They're low enough on the resource usage scale that it might help. Failing that, you're going to have to get creative and find a tinyOS installation. There's some *nixs that can boot off a USB drive. One of those might be light enough if you're only using it for media.

[LionMan]

MPlayer and VLC are the two main media players for linux. Other than that, speed shouldn't be an issue as long as you're not running any large processes in the background.

For the OS, any recent version will do.

[LostMyMind]

LionMan did you see the "designed for Windows ME" remark? Probably means a 486 if we're lucky. I wouldn't even begin to guess how much ram it has. But most likely it's on the really really low side. I wouldn't be surprise if it's only 2Meg.

[SteeleDragon78]

LionMan did you see the "designed for Windows ME" remark? Probably means a 486 if we're lucky. I wouldn't even begin to guess how much ram it has. But most likely it's on the really really low side. I wouldn't be surprise if it's only 2Meg.

i would disagree, at that point in time they would have most likely been early Pentium's. but ill agree with a low amount of ram, at the most 64meg.

EH, if you can provide the model type we may be able to help a bit more, with the model we can pull the specs from toshiba.com and then get frankenstein on it

[Mr. Rude]

Best hit 18004memory.com & kingston.com to see what flavour of memory that old girl can run ; )

[edible_hat]

Thanks for the help so far! VLC plays smoothly if you don't mind a framerate of about 6 frames per second. Other media players want me to install the correct codecs which I haven't done yet (that's a job for tonight).

By the highly technical process of looking at the sticker on the bottom of the laptop, I can determined it's a 1800 System Unit, model number PS181A-00WFX.

also it has a Windows 2000 license key sticker.

[SteeleDragon78]

Thanks for the help so far! VLC plays smoothly if you don't mind a framerate of about 6 frames per second. Other media players want me to install the correct codecs which I haven't done yet (that's a job for tonight).

By the highly technical process of looking at the sticker on the bottom of the laptop, I can determined it's a 1800 System Unit, model number PS181A-00WFX.

also it has a Windows 2000 license key sticker.

OK, from my snooping around on toshibas site, i can pretty asuredly state that the ram onboard is most likely 100mhz sdram. and as far as i can tell looking at all the specs for the 1800 series the min was 128. i looked on toshibadirect.com and found 2 modules, but they are kinda pricy.ill let you be the judge

[Eric the Grey]

By the highly technical process of looking at the sticker on the bottom of the laptop, I can determined it's a 1800 System Unit, model number PS181A-00WFX.

also it has a Windows 2000 license key sticker.

My suggestion is, much as I hate to say it, try to find a copy of either Win 98 or 2000 and install it. Current distros of Linux have higher hardware requirements than older ones due to the advancements of the technology. I've yet to find one that runs smoothly on that old hardware unless you're running command line only. I don't know how, or if it's possible to run video this way.

If it has a Win2000 sticker on it, you may be able to install an OEM copy successfully on it. It should be legal to do so if the key works. Be sure to check the availability of drivers at the Toshiba web site before you settle on either. Without them, some of your hardware may not work right.


Eric the Grey

[LostMyMind]

If you get clever enough, you can get win9x installed with a very small footprint. Leaving alot of memory and processing power to playing media files.

[LionMan]

My suggestion is, much as I hate to say it, try to find a copy of either Win 98 or 2000 and install it. Current distros of Linux have higher hardware requirements than older ones due to the advancements of the technology. I've yet to find one that runs smoothly on that old hardware unless you're running command line only. I don't know how, or if it's possible to run video this way.
Eric the Grey

If you run GNOME or KDE, that would be correct. However if you run another window manager, you will find you can get a decent speed with few problems. Personally, I use IceWM. XFCE is another decent one I've used, who's interface looks like kde. True hardcore unix people look at fvwm or twm (and tvwm).

[LionMan]

Thanks for the help so far! VLC plays smoothly if you don't mind a framerate of about 6 frames per second. Other media players want me to install the correct codecs which I haven't done yet (that's a job for tonight).

I have noticed that too about avi files. They seem to require a lot of speed to run at a decent rate. Should have suggested in my first posting on this thread to consider converting them to mpg or another format that runs better.

[edible_hat]

I'm now attempting a Damn Small Linux install...