[Q] small os for old pc

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Dennis Laan

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Aug 24, 2013
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I've an old pc (via epia-m) that I would like to use as a media center but I can't find any small OS for it. I've tried puppy linux but my 1080p videos are played in slowmotion. Is there any os that only plays videos or is it possible to do something in RDP style ?
 
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I've looked up the EPIA-M and it appears to have a PCI slot. Does the case not have any room at all, even using a right-angle riser card? Does the TV not have an HDMI input?

You'll be out of luck with 1080p playback on the VIA C3 processor which appears to be what is used on the EPIA. My laptop has a Pentium M at 1.2GHz, which is a much more capable CPU than a C3, and it can only just play back 720p. It's not the operating system that is...
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molletts

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Jun 16, 2009
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Your EPIA is most likely CPU-bound when playing back video. 1080p playback is very demanding and needs a fast CPU.

Your best bet might be to get a low-end discrete graphics card that can do hardware decoding. The nVidia GeForce GT610 is available in a PCI version (assuming the EPIA doesn't have a PCIe slot) and is well-supported on Linux, including hardware video playback via VDPAU. They are almost always passively-cooled and usually come with low-profile I/O brackets (although you should double-check this before buying).

Hope this helps,
Stephen
 
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Dennis Laan

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Aug 24, 2013
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thank you for your response but it's not totally what I meant, I would like to do it without any hardware changes because I can't build a PCI card in my pc case (micro case). And my VGA slot on my TV is already token so I have to use the RCA connector, wich isn't on always on buget video cards.
 
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molletts

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Jun 16, 2009
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I've looked up the EPIA-M and it appears to have a PCI slot. Does the case not have any room at all, even using a right-angle riser card? Does the TV not have an HDMI input?

You'll be out of luck with 1080p playback on the VIA C3 processor which appears to be what is used on the EPIA. My laptop has a Pentium M at 1.2GHz, which is a much more capable CPU than a C3, and it can only just play back 720p. It's not the operating system that is the problem here - the CPU simply can't crunch the numbers fast enough. You could try turning on some of the decoding shortcuts in libavcodec that are intended to allow playback (after a fashion) on underpowered systems but the picture quality will suffer.
 
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