Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere as I could not find. This query is for an educational art project and I want to use a minimal UNIX-like OS and play an MP4 or MKV video in a continuous loop at a museum exhibition. It needs to be stable and run 8 hours per day, and start up instructions will be next to the laptop.
I am new to Linux and bought an Acer Aspire es1-431 with Linpus Lite pre-installed. I would like to overwrite with Proteus or Slackware OS. I am reading manuals and looking at sites but time is short. I also have a MacBook that can be used to support any downloads or bootable USB.

I will appreciate any suggestions to get up and running so I can test ASAP.

Thanks

Mark
Bangkok

I had similar box once to play ads at work, I installed Debian base system, added Xorg and MPlayer. Configured passwordless autologin and mplayer autostart to play whatever file is on USB stick. No instructions were needed. I just told them to hit the power button for [ACPI] shutdown, replace the USB stick with new ads and turn it back on. I did not install any desktop environments or window managers, so mplayer runs fullscreen with no window borders. I quit the job there but I'm sure this box still runs as intended.

problem is the netbook hardware is so diverse; you should search whether this particular device has insurmountable difficulties with linux.
once that is cleared, just go with a very minimal system.
install cli only, then install Xorg, then go with emerson's instructions.

Thanks. The es1-431 is supposed to be a real laptop, although an inexpensive one with Intel N3700, 4GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive. It has Linux (Linpus) installed. It has a DVD and USB ports. I can try a video player with Linpus but would like to install Slackware.

Sounds like a kiosk - why not use one that is already packaged ?.
Maybe porteus-kiosk

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks. I will give that a try. For the backup there is only the Linpus Linux installed and I got this only for this project. Later I plan to use it to learn Linux. I used UNIX about 30 years ago during the dark ages, but have to relearn. I downloaded Porteus Kiosk onto a USB from my MacBook. But not sure how to get it on the Acer from the command line. I am furiously reading sites and FAQs. Someone knowledgeable could probably do this in a few minutes. I can show the video on an iPad, but I want to include open source software. I appreciate the feedback.

Look at the doco on the site.
Don't copy the iso to the USB, use "dd" on your Macbook (caveat, I've never used a Mac). This makes the USB bootable (and it'll erase anything on it BTW). Stick it in the notebook and boot from USB. Follow the wizard apparently - I haven't tested this image, but the process is pretty standard.
If you tell the wizard to install to the internal hard disk I image it will erase that too before installing.

As for the backup comment, that is just my sigline.

Great. Sounds straightforward (how many times have I said that?)

I will let you know how this works. I just went to the shop where I bought this (big place called IT City). The "service engineers" had no idea what to do and thought the command line was DOS.

I bought two new Sandisk USB sticks and will download the iso from Windows and Mac. At work I have a desktop iMac and want to have dual boot Mac/Linux if possible.

I have tried this several times using:

Mark$ sudo dd /Desktop/Porteus-KDE4-v3.1-x86_64.iso of=/dev/rdisk2s1 bs=1m

and

Mark$ sudo dd /Desktop/Porteus-Kiosk-3.7.0-i586.iso of=/dev/rdisk2s1 bs=1m

I did this with and without the umount. I get path errors (I think) "unknown operand dd"

I checked for typos and at least got to the password request. Not sure what is going on. I guess keep reading and trying, and maybe make a DVD on a Windows machine.

these instructions are linux-centric. most linux commands are more likely to be found on a Mac (with iOS) than on windows.

ok, first of all, i made a logical mistake; if your netbook already has linux installed, then installing another linux should not be hard.
you can forget about linpus, it seems to be a horrible os, and unmaintained afaik.

now about the dd command.

you have downloaded the file to some folder.
you have checked that the checksums (usually md5 or shaXXX) check out; in other words, the downloaded file is not corrupted.
the checksums are usually found on the webpage where you downloaded the iso.
if you are confused by this, you can skip it for now.

now, in that folder, open a terminal (i'm pretty sure there's a terminal.app on iOS).
make sure you're in the right folder by entering "pwd" (=present working directory).

then you have to find out the path to your usb stick. that is, not the filesystem, but the stick itself.
this is tricky, and has to be done 200% correct, otherwise you might accidentally destroy your disk!

this is how i do it- i enter the following command in a terminal window, and find the stick from its output (in this case an old but sturdy 1GB stick that i myself labeled "ONEGB"):
you will obviously have something else there; you have to find out which one your usb stick is.
another way would be to use
these outputs tells me that the usb stick in question is /dev/sdc (NOT sdc1).

from that i build my dd command:
remember you opened the terminal inside the folder containing the download!

this takes a while, but evtl. should give some message about how many blocks went in and out, and no error message.
then, just to be safe, still wait a minute before you pull out the stick (i swear, people have been having trouble there, even with the sync command!), and try if it boots your netbook.

PS:
i'm not sure a heavy KDE desktop is the right thing for this hardware, and what you are planning to do with it.

Thanks for this. I think I understand generally but need to study your terminology as I am at the Paleo-Linux level. It is fun to learn this though.

i updated my last post with the instructions.
btw, porteus kiosk has its own page with detailed instructions even for windows:
http://porteus-kiosk.org/download.html

...and that is what i always recommend: always first look for instructions for creation of boot media and installation on the webpages of the distro in question.