Project: Kitchen Utensil+ (Mk II in progress 22/09/10)

[Haiku32]

This is really cool actually. I would have been tempted to build it into the bottom of the cupboard so you can't see the box. This still looks good though, nice job.

[Rob_B]

This is really cool actually. I would have been tempted to build it into the bottom of the cupboard so you can't see the box. This still looks good though, nice job.

You could easily do that (and use an Acer Revo or something) but our cupboards seem to be full constantly so not an option for me I'm afraid

[Rob_B]

Well, Ubuntu installed albeit very slowly & with some error messages (that I didn't understand) after working out how to do the basics I fired up iPlayer, still choopy (but not as bad as with XP)
CPU is maxed out, is there a memory display for it so I can see if an additional 128mb of RAM would help?

If not, then I'm on the lookout for a cheap laptop more expense, gutted!

[Biscuit]

I cant remember about the memor dispay thing (although more ram is always a good thing).

If your still having problems you could try xubuntu which is very similar as ubuntu but it uses the XFCE interface which is even more streamlined again.

[Rob_B]

I think it may be a lost cause, could spend another £5 on gaining 128mb of RAM but I'm leaning towards scrapping this laptop & getting hold of another cheap one

[pollaxe]

Watching this with interest! I'd half planned to do something like this but the laptop (a very old Dell) went and died on me the other day.

Would Ubuntu Netbook Remix be worth trying? It ran very well on my EEE PC 1000H but I eventually caved and put Windows 7 back onto it.

[Rob_B]

Watching this with interest! I'd half planned to do something like this but the laptop (a very old Dell) went and died on me the other day.

Would Ubuntu Netbook Remix be worth trying? It ran very well on my EEE PC 1000H but I eventually caved and put Windows 7 back onto it.

I was wondering if the Netbook version will still run on 'normal' hardware or have they cut out all of that out to shrink the install/mem footprint?
Still, would this make iPlayer any speedier though? [

[kellyharding]

A 1Ghz Duron should cut it for most tasks with Linux, it is the amount of ram thats the real issue.

Upping it to half a gig would make a big difference, 1Gb even more so.

The Netbook Remix should work on it I'd of thought, will that laptop boot from a usb stick? if so you can save yourself the wasted CDR if it doesn't work.

XFCE is very lightweight compared to KDE/Gnome, which have grown a little bloated over the years with modern hardware advances.

You could try these alternatives to a fullblown Ubuntu:

http://distrowatch.com/ulite
http://distrowatch.com/wattos

Though I've never tried them, they are based on Ubuntu, so they might be better. Worth a try perhaps?

[Flibb]

There is quiet a lot of info on avforums in the computer section about running iplayer, etc on low power computers, both windows and linux. When I looked at getting a nettop, the general impression was that if it wouldnt play iplayer on a windows rig, it wouldnt work with linux either. I was mainly looking at people using an acer revo r3600, so a bit different to what you are doing, lots of people were playing with XBMC on linux and Win. I think iplayer uses flash, have you tried the beta drivers that were recently released?

[kellyharding]

Oh and forgot to add, you can see how much memory you have etc invarious ways, on the command line it is simpy the command free

There are also applets for Gnome for the top memu bar, as well as activity monitors etc. Have a look in software centre for such stuff.

[mycarsavw]

Grab a copy of Puppy Linux and go here for more details on how to get iplayer working.

[Rob_B]

A 1Ghz Duron should cut it for most tasks with Linux, it is the amount of ram thats the real issue.

Upping it to half a gig would make a big difference, 1Gb even more so.

The Netbook Remix should work on it I'd of thought, will that laptop boot from a usb stick? if so you can save yourself the wasted CDR if it doesn't work.

XFCE is very lightweight compared to KDE/Gnome, which have grown a little bloated over the years with modern hardware advances.

You could try these alternatives to a fullblown Ubuntu:

http://distrowatch.com/ulite
http://distrowatch.com/wattos

Though I've never tried them, they are based on Ubuntu, so they might be better. Worth a try perhaps?

Thanks for that. I'm just not convinced that going from 240mb to 384mb (the max the laptop officially supports) will make as big a difference as I need to get smooth video, iPlayer is literally 2FPS, will 100mb really fix that, I'm not so sure it will. Even with a lite OS will it be enough?

I could also try a 512mb stick & cross my fingers but it'll just be wasted money (about £15 I think!!) if it doesn't

I'm scouring everywhere for a cheap laptop with a 14" screen (just realised it's not 15" so my frame will be wasted otherwise! I don't need a HDD/Optical drive/keyboard/trackpad or even the LCD frame, surely someone has one in this state they want rid of!

The search continues...

[scaryjim]

Is your laptop a 1GHz duron, Rob? If so I'll fire up iplayer on my work@home rig at some point this week (a 700MHz Duron) and let you know how it runs with 512MB ram. That should give you a good idea of whether you're CPU or RAM limited...

EDIT: It occurs to me that another possible option would be to try to work out if you can pin-out the laptop's LCD to another type of display connection (dvi / vga / lvds) and use a set of "standard" components in the box instead...?

[Rob_B]

Is your laptop a 1GHz duron, Rob? If so I'll fire up iplayer on my work@home rig at some point this week (a 700MHz Duron) and let you know how it runs with 512MB ram. That should give you a good idea of whether you're CPU or RAM limited...

EDIT: It occurs to me that another possible option would be to try to work out if you can pin-out the laptop's LCD to another type of display connection (dvi / vga / lvds) and use a set of "standard" components in the box instead...?

It's a 1.2Ghz, if it's alright I might go for a 512mb stick & take the risk it doesn't work (appreciate your 256 in my WTD thread though )

Much appreciated

Screen - Not sure if I could do that, not sure which cable of the two from the LCD is what! If I could then unsure how I'd power it as well

[scaryjim]

Fair enough - I've had a look at the pin outs for several laptop screens in the past and it's certainly not straightforward - I just wondered if you had the technical / electronics knowledge to give it a go!

I'd certainly be surprised if a 1.2GHz Duron was holding iPlayer back, but I wouldn't want to swear to anything! I used to have a Duron 1200 system back in the day though, and it could run pretty much anything I threw at it on Windows XP, with only 256MB RAM, so if I was you I'd persevere a little longer with this one! Like I said, I'll have a play with me Duron 700 at home later this week and see how it handles iPlayer...

[circuitmonkey]

have you got the correct driver for your GPU installed?