Use old laptop for DVD player

[mojave]

I have an old Compaq Presario laptop (11 years old) with Windows 98 on it. It is extremely slow. I would like to load Linux or something on it and DVD software. It will only be used as a portable DVD player. The laptop has a DVD drive and originally came with DVD software so I'm sure it can play them ok. Does anybody have any suggestions of what to use for O/S and DVD software?

[tthurman]

Video LAN - VLC Media Player

I've been using it for years, free and updated frequently enough to keep it current.

VLC download page

[mojave]

Thanks. I'm downloading Ubuntu now and I'll try that with VLC.

[dvenardos]

You might want to check and see if someone has been able to get your laptop running on linux. The older laptops (and many of the newer ones) can be tough to get running on linux because of the closed source drivers required to make them run. Apple laptops were very popular with linux geeks for quite some time because they were one of the few that would run linux well.

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/compaq.html

You might want to try the Fedora LXDE remix. LXDE is a window manager designed to be very lightweight. They have a live CD so you can see if it will work first.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/LXDE

[dvenardos]

Ubuntu is nice but kind of bloaty.

Thanks. I'm downloading Ubuntu now and I'll try that with VLC.