Looking for small OS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Laplante
  • Start date Start date
M

Michael Laplante

I'm attempting to convert an old laptop to a digital photo frame. Looking
for a small OS and an associated slideshow program that can display JPEGs.

The intent is to load the OS from a floppy, CD-ROM drive or memory stick. No
hard drives as I don't want running parts with associated noise.

PS. I have no experience with anything other than DOS and Windows so it
should be an "os for dummies."

M
 
there are a couple of OS's that fit on a floppy and there are a few OS's
that fit on a CD, just google for them. Knoppix is one
 
Michael said:
I'm attempting to convert an old laptop to a digital photo frame. Looking
for a small OS and an associated slideshow program that can display JPEGs.

The intent is to load the OS from a floppy, CD-ROM drive or memory stick. No
hard drives as I don't want running parts with associated noise.

PS. I have no experience with anything other than DOS and Windows so it
should be an "os for dummies."

M
Click to expand...

If its an old laptop it may have something like a quad speed cdrom.
Some of these are just about silent. Using a cd based OS will give you
a full desktop environemt and a large number of apps, far beyond a
floppy OS. Frozentech has a list of most linux live distros, which run
straight off cd. Some of these are designed to be as close to win as
possible, and can be used effectively after an afternoon's play. If the
chosen OS likes your hardware.

How much RAM has it got? GUI linux lives dont run on 16M, command line
versions will.


NT
 
The intent is to load the OS from a floppy, CD-ROM drive or memory stick. No
hard drives as I don't want running parts with associated noise.
Click to expand...

Knoppix Live CD. Boots from the CDROM. NO harddisk installation needed.

--
.~. Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY. http://www.linux-sxs.org
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Ubuntu 6.06) Linux 2.6.16.20
^ ^ 17:31:02 up 7 days 3:14 0 users load average: 1.04 1.02 1.00
news://news.3home.net news://news.hkpcug.org news://news.newsgroup.com.hk
 
Michael said:
I'm attempting to convert an old laptop to a digital photo frame. Looking
for a small OS and an associated slideshow program that can display JPEGs.

The intent is to load the OS from a floppy, CD-ROM drive or memory stick. No
hard drives as I don't want running parts with associated noise.

PS. I have no experience with anything other than DOS and Windows so it
should be an "os for dummies."

M
Click to expand...

Don't most pictures take a fair amount of space, thereby ruling out floppies?
 
Michael Laplante said:
I'm attempting to convert an old laptop to a digital photo frame. Looking
for a small OS and an associated slideshow program that can display JPEGs.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the OS suggestions to date. Can anyone recommend a Linux
slideshow app? Preferably one that has a few interesting transitions. . .

M
 
John Jay Smith said:
out of curiosity...

what are the specs of this laptop?
Click to expand...

Thinkpad 390, about three years old. Haven't looked at the specs yet, but
has more than enough capacity for my requirements. Some DIY sites suggest
gutting the computer of all the internals then remounting them on the back
of the frame. Since this is my first go at this I'm going to mount the whole
computer to the back of the frame. Weights not an issue since I intend to
set this on a bookcase. For me the issue will be noise I expect hence the
possibility that I may remove the hard drive and run it off a CD.

M
 
Michael... sorry. My world is different....

in my world there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of kids
that life would change if they had one
laptop even 3 years old to use as their own. They would learn by experience
and would probably have
a far better chance to find a job or achieve a goal later in life.
Even if it was not a kid, there are people out there that would benefit
extreamly from having a laptop even 3 years old. You can do lots of thing
with older technology....if you install the correct stuff on it.

Isn't that better than using your computer as a frame? It seems to me like
an awful waste....

ok if you need to use if for some reason...or sell it if you need the money,
but to make it into a frame?

Com onnnnn!

Just a thought... remember give and you shall receive...

its one of the fundamental laws of the universe.
 
John Jay Smith said:
Michael... sorry. My world is different....
Click to expand...
Isn't that better than using your computer as a frame? It seems to me like
an awful waste....

ok if you need to use if for some reason...or sell it if you need the
money, but to make it into a frame?

Com onnnnn!
Click to expand...

My inclination was to politely ignore your response but you've helped me out
before so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

1. In this case, I bought the laptop used for $125 for just this purpose.
It's not an old one that I just happened to have lying about. I read about
digital photo frames and wanted some way to show off about four years of
digital photos that -- right now -- just sit unseen on my hard drive.

2. My original response was a rant detailing my contributions to the less
fortunate in life -- children, homeless and people struggling with health
issues -- but I realized that I don't have to defend myself to a stranger. I
think I have enough good karma points in my account that I can be allowed
this indulgence.

However, I understand the good intentions behind your post.

Cheers,

M
 
There are only good intentions in my post. I have no idea why you would
think of anything else.
You dont have to "defend" since I am not accusing anyone of anything...

im just telling you that it would be better to gift the laptop if its
functional instead of making it into a frame.

its your laptop do whatever you want with it.. I was just giving you an
idea....

No reason to get jumpy about it...
 
Just a thought... remember give and you shall receive...
Click to expand...
its one of the fundamental laws of the universe.
Click to expand...

Only one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity, and Christianity
is far from being the universe. It's far from being in the majority
on this little planet.
 
No, I did not take if from christianity,

it is one of the fundemental laws of the universe

You can even use it, or live in ignorance believing that it is belief of
some limited group of people,
and not a fundemental reality of the way the universe works.
 
Michael said:
Thinkpad 390, about three years old. Haven't looked at the specs yet, but
has more than enough capacity for my requirements. Some DIY sites suggest
gutting the computer of all the internals then remounting them on the back
of the frame. Since this is my first go at this I'm going to mount the whole
computer to the back of the frame. Weights not an issue since I intend to
set this on a bookcase. For me the issue will be noise I expect hence the
possibility that I may remove the hard drive and run it off a CD.

M
Click to expand...

I thought you said it was an old laptop. Just leave whatever OS is on
there and set the hdd power down timeout to 1 minute.

If you dont want the hdd coming on at all, create a ramdrive on bootup,
copy a stack of pic files to it and read the picfiles from the
ramdrive. Or to take it further... also, since it probably has a ton of
ram, strip all unnecessary services off, shutdown parts of win/etc you
dont need, eg systray, explorer, etc (easy way to do this is use
winsolo), .and switch the swapfile off altogether. Now after bootup it
will never whirr.


NT
 
Michael Laplante wrote:
Click to expand...
If you dont want the hdd coming on at all, create a ramdrive on bootup,
copy a stack of pic files to it and read the picfiles from the
ramdrive. Or to take it further... also, since it probably has a ton of
ram, strip all unnecessary services off, shutdown parts of win/etc you
dont need, eg systray, explorer, etc (easy way to do this is use
winsolo), .and switch the swapfile off altogether. Now after bootup it
will never whirr.
Click to expand...

I'm not a hardware whizz -- I recall I played around with ramdrives long ago
(DOS days), but have long forgotten about it. Any URLs or tutes you can
point me to? I recall the basics but need to be refreshed on the specifics.

Winsolo? I'll Google for it, but can you give me a hint what is?

M
 
No, I did not take if from christianity,
Click to expand...

I didn't say you did, I said it is.
it is one of the fundemental laws of the universe
Click to expand...

No, just of Christianity.
You can even use it, or live in ignorance believing that it is belief of
some limited group of people,
and not a fundemental reality of the way the universe works.
Click to expand...

You have a very distorted view of "universe" - not even this planet
works like that. The rest of the universe really doesn't care whether
you give or not - or even if your species, planet or galaxy exists.
The entire universe, minus the Milky Way galaxy, is still the same
universe to 9 9s.
 
I'm not a hardware whizz -- I recall I played around with ramdrives long ago
(DOS days), but have long forgotten about it. Any URLs or tutes you can
point me to? I recall the basics but need to be refreshed on the specifics.

Winsolo? I'll Google for it, but can you give me a hint what is?
Click to expand...

Program: WinSolo
Company: Procode Development
W: LFW
Ware: (Freeware) (free for non-commercial use) LFW (v 1.0)

http://www.sonicspot.com/ Rats, that link has gone sour - please let me
know if you find a new one.

Susan
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