Re: RFC on low resource machine and debian
zgv might be just what you are looking for (no X required). I say
"might", because it doesn't work with all SVGA video cards, however
with an older machine, the chances should be pretty good (although I
never have had very good luck with Compaq boxen):
Package: zgv
Priority: optional
Section: graphics
Installed-Size: 403
Maintainer: Ryszard Lach <rla@debian.org>
Architecture: i386
Version: 5.6-1
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.2.4-4), libjpeg62, libpng2 (>= 1.0.12), libtiff3g,
svgalibg1, zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
Conflicts: svgalib1-libggi2
Filename: pool/main/z/zgv/zgv_5.6-1_i386.deb
Size: 211914
MD5sum: c21f49aec462a528bfc5bd4f5d6f1ab7
Description: SVGAlib graphics viewer
'zgv' is a graphics viewer, based around SVGAlib, which can display
GIF87a, GIF89a, JPEG/JFIF, PNG, PBM/PGM/PPM, BMP, and TGA files on a
standard VGA and most SVGAs, with a full-screen file selector
front-end. It can also be used as a simple command-line file viewer,
with 'zgv filename', to do slide shows of a list of files, and so on.
On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 10:14:56AM -0400, Drew Cohan wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> I'm asking for suggestions on the following situation:
>
>
>
> I have an very old laptop, a Compaq Aero 33/c, with 12 MB of RAM and a
> ~230 MB hard drive. I like this machine because of its small form
> factor. All I want to do with this machine is to have it continuously
> display jpeg images one after the other as in a slideshow. And I would
> like to use debian to do it.
>
>
>
> My thoughts have been to install a basic, no frills version of debian,
> use PPP, add X, add a slideshow program and call it a day.
> Unfortunately, I can only get so far. The machine only has a floppy
> drive (no cd-rom drive) but does have access to the internet via an
> external 56k modem. So far I've been able to install potato 2.2r7 via
> floppies (this was before 3.0 came out) and I've been able to trim a
> little off of that using dselect (removing the telnet packages for
> example) to save on disk space. This leaves me with a functional linux
> system with the most basic commands, 70MB of hard drive space, and a
> working PPP connection to the internet.
>
>
>
> So at this point I try to install X via apt-get install x-window-system
> and it tells me sure, I can do that, but it's going to take up the rest
> of your hard drive space (40 mb in .debs, 70 mb unpacked). This would
> leave no room for images or installing a slideshow program so I cancel
> it.
>
>
>
> So what it boils down to is this:
>
>
>
> 1. Do I have to install X see images?
>
> 2. Will I have to install a window manager on top of X to see images?
> (or just use xdm, maybe answered my own question)
>
> 3. Is there an alternative to using the full X package that makes sense
> for my machine? I've seen some stuff about Nano-X, Tiny-X (purportedly
> included in XFree86 now anyway). These packages don't seem to be in
> debian stable via apt-get. Basically, I'd need gcc to compile XFree86 on
> this machine and I'm not sure I could get it on there without exhausting
> my hdd space first (don't know, haven't tried). Most frustrating part is
> that I can't seem to find any information on how to use/install/make
> work nano/tiny X.
>
> 4. I've seen some things on SVGA lib, but no details. Is that something
> that can help me here? What is it, how to use it/install it?
>
> 5. Am I going to just have to develop all this stuff on another machine
> and port the results over to this humble laptop?
>
>
>
> TIA.
>
>
>
> Drew
>
Reply to: