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dual boot linux for instant dvd/music playback?

post #1 of 10
3/12/06 at 2:22pm
Thread Starter 
Hi.
I know some laptop brands (Toshbia, Averatec, HP) have been producing laptops that don't need to be booted into windows for playing dvds etc. I get the impression that this is done by loading a stripped down version of linux which boots faster than XP (not hard) and allows nearly instant playback. I'm wondering if there's a distro that I could install as a dual boot (- or launched from a memory key?? or from a hot key??) that would give me the same functionality. The closest thing I can see is LiMP- but I find the docs unclear. Anyone tried using it in this capacity, regardless of their OS?
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post #2 of 10
3/12/06 at 2:46pm
I believe thats exactly what Cyberlink did with their OS-independent DVD playback (correct me if I'm wrong).

My immediate thoughts would be to just try some kind of media-oriented Knoppix LiveCD. Does that suite your needs?
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post #3 of 10
3/12/06 at 2:51pm
dyna:bolic and movix comes to mind.
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post #4 of 10
3/12/06 at 3:32pm
Zeta ( http://www.yellowtab.com ) boots really fast - 25s on my old Fujitsu with a 2GHz P4; 50s on an old 500Mhz Celeron. It's not Linux, but it's a very cool OS (formerly known as BeOS). You need to check compatibility with your computer. It comes with a DVD player. You can multiboot it. There's a live CD as a free download at http://download.freenet.de/archiv_z/...e-cd_7560.html

Be careful, though. You might fall in love with its UI and speed.

- Ed
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post #5 of 10
3/12/06 at 4:11pm
i've read somewhere that recently some japanese company made a demo distro that boots in 10 seconds. sick!
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post #6 of 10
3/12/06 at 5:00pm
No, slick!
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post #7 of 10
3/12/06 at 10:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf
i've read somewhere that recently some japanese company made a demo distro that boots in 10 seconds. sick!
damn yo i need that for meh lappy.
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post #8 of 10
3/13/06 at 2:29am
http://www.machboot.com/ <---info
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post #9 of 10
3/13/06 at 7:59pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I found something called 'geeXbox' from the linux site that boots from live cd pretty fast, and then loads into ram- meaning the live cd can be removed from the drive. That's great cos I'm not keen on dual installs, but I'm mildly miffed now. Apparently it's possible to get the distro (it's on 6MB!) to boot from USB, but even tho' my computer includes a 'boot from removable hard drive' option in the bios, it just won't do it. The usb flashes away, the screen turns black with the blinking cursor as though it's going to boot... and then I get the F8 screen for booting into windows. I really like this option- carrying a cd is fine, but it's obviously much handier to be able to just plug in a usb drive... Any ideas? I've tried reformatting the partition to FAT16 as requested, tried both GRUB and the other OS loader for greatest compatibility.. and geeXbox still won't load.

drat. it was a nice idea...
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post #10 of 10
3/13/06 at 11:49pm
You are correct in that a lot of those DVD player setups are Linux distros customized for the laptop. The thing is, they ARE customized for the laptop, immensly. The hardware never changes for most of it so they can make a distro stripped down for that purpose. I believe you could actually use Gentoo for this purpose, removing things like the system logger and the like to help boot up even quicker, compile everything directly into the kernel, etc. But I havent done embedded development yet myself to say for sure.

Seablade
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