I'm a school teacher with a teeny bit of linux experience (setup K12LTSP at a school 6 years ago).

I need a LINUX DISTRO of some sort for an EXHIBITION of Primary School DIGITAL ART.

- I have 12 old optima workpro PCs
- need something light
- UBUNTU gives me the black screen after it boots up

- puppy works but there are other issues like...

- need to have apps start automatically on boot as gallery won't be open everyday but people can view screens thru large window. I have already figured out how to wake PCs via BIOS setting.

- needs gxine or vlc to play video loops
- image viewer with slideshow option
- tux paint for kids to play with on days that gallery is open
- firefox a bonus but not essential

- PCs won't have internet connection or networking capabilities at gallery so are stand alone

- oh and lastly, the exhibition opens in less than two weeks so I am a bit frantic.

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Can you give details of the machines you have...that is:

* CPU Make/Model
* RAM
* HDD
* Graphics Controller

For what you're trying to do, I really think you'll struggle with such old PC's, since it will be very processor intensive and the latest distro's are not built for old processors (I think your machines' would have Intel Pentium III if I'm not mistaken)...

I ran CPU-Z and here are some random details... hope it helps

Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz

Chipset
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Northbridge Intel i845G rev. B1
Southbridge Intel 82801DB (ICH4) rev. 02
Memory Type DDR
Memory Size 512 MBytes
Memory Frequency 134.7 MHz (3:4)

Memory SPD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DIMM # 1
SMBus address 0x50
Memory type DDR
Manufacturer (ID) (0000000000000000)
Size 512 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC2700 (166 MHz)


Processors Information
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Processor 1 ID = 0
Number of cores 1 (max 1)
Number of threads 1 (max 1)
Name Intel Celeron
Codename Northwood
Specification Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.60GHz
Package (platform ID) Socket 478 mPGA (0x2)
CPUID F.2.9

Display Adapters
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter 0
Display name \\.\DISPLAY1
Name Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller
Memory size 64 MB

DMI
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DMI BIOS
vendor Award Software International, Inc.
version 6.00 PG
date 12/19/2003

DMI System Information
manufacturer Optima

Hi,

Try a LiveCD from 'The LiveCD List'.

Setup for that class of machine should not be a hassle.
I prefer 'Slackware' and think the stable release of 13.1 would work fine. Addition of packages for your needs is easily done.


The above links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

@onebuck - love how subtle you Slackers are


@debstar
Depending on your level of skill with Linux there are many choices where there are Live CD's- check out www.distrowatch.com for a listing of the more popular distro's.

You could also optionally build your own
I can show you how if interested

and Debian has a Debian Jr platform
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/

and its quite easy to make a livecd/usb thats installable to hdd
using a combo of live-helper and remastersys

So, there are also a few distros made for kids too

Please post back if you need help with anyhting

Hi,

Subtle has nothing to do with my honest statement. I believe the OP would have a successful install for the equipment as listed.

Sure, a LiveCD can be used but that is a good means to test drive something. The OP queried therefore I presented my suggestion(s).

There's actually a good chance that it may not work, unless the kernel developers have finally fixed the issues with the i845G.

Bug #26345: [i845G] CPU/GPU incoherency, still shows Medium Critical.

Bug #27187: [i855GM] gtt chipset flush is not cache coherent, now shows Medium Normal.

If all else fails, and it needs to be soon, you may need to use an older distro. I know slackware 12.2 works fine with the 845G, and there are still quite a few packages out there that can be found for it as well. Though, I don't know about any other distro's.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think an older distro might be the answer. I'm going to hunt down the fedora/redhat disks I used back on 2004 and see if I have more success with these. At the moment I am trying out "crunchbang" which loads OK from CD but is still slow. Might be better after an install.

@onebuck - No problemo Did not mean anything untoward by my statement

SUCCESS!!!! Installed Crunchbang and it boots up fairly quickly PLUS it has VLC and I've figured out how to make it start automatically and play the short videos I have on a loop. I'm well chuffed!! It does exactly what I want. Will install old fedora on the others for tux paint.

Used these links...

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/howt...start_programs

http://www.videolan.org/doc/play-howto/en/ch04.html

Thanks for the help and support!

Hi,

No, just what I said. I was forward with my statement and did not take offense to your statement. Trying to be clear with my stance.

Seems like a troll spammming the forums...I suggest its blocked