23 hour plane trip, best "Flash Drive OS" for max battery life?

[abuthemagician]

I will be on a 23 hour flight home from Hawaii in april and want to make the most of the flight by watching movies etc. I use Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon every day, but it halves my battery life on me. I was wondering if there was a distribution that would fit on my 512mb flash drive that could play xvid videos and give me max battery life for the flight. I really don't want to do anything but watch videos with the machine while in the air, as i can plug in during layovers, and boot into my regular system. All movies will either be on DVD or a shared fat32 partition. Thanks in advance :)

(The machine is a Dell D820 with a Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz, 2 gig ram, 256mb Nvidia Quado NVS 120M, Intel 3945ABG)

[kool_kat_os]

What plane are you flying on? If it is a Boeing 747....i think that they have an outlet near the seat.....im not for sure.....but i think so....

[abuthemagician]

I am on 3 actually and i don't know what they will be yet. I don't want to plan on having any available power during the flight, and i don't want to spend money on a auto / air adapter i would use once.

[kool_kat_os]

I am on 3 actually and i don't know what they will be yet. I don't want to plan on having any available power during the flight, and i don't want to spend money on a auto / air adapter i would use once.

true

[smartboyathome]

I would say something that is light on processing power like Puppy.

[BDNiner]

I invested in a car lighter adapter, because it has a connection for a laptop, mini DVD and mp3 player. My last trip i took in Jan every seat had an outlet and that was on a 767 and a 737 on American Airlines.

[abuthemagician]

What type of outlet? AC 110v or a DC Power Port (like a car lighter goes in)

[aimran]

Video is bound to eat up battery :(

I would suggest playing lower quality vids if you want to extend battery life. I don't know, try it with 2 versions of the same movie and see how long battery lasts with both...

[handy]

If you rip the DVD's onto your hard drive you would use less battery power playing them off the hard drive than using the optical drive.

[LaRoza]

This may seem a bit old fashioned, but how about a book (or a couple of them).

This way, you might not need the laptop at all, and if it loses power, you have "backup".

[hardyn]

its not so much the OS, its the configuration.

a pooly set-up Os is going to beat the battery, plain and simple. Ubuntu does not enable ANY of the power saving options by default other than CPU scaling.

Unless you have a nuclear battery, your not getting 23hours... the book might be a good idea.

[abuthemagician]

I have a book that i will be reading, but i wanted to watch my dragon ball z dvd's (after ripping them) as i have no time to do it at home as well. I do have a second battery i will use, and can recharge during layovers as well.

I think i will just use puppy linux and figure out the best power saving features for it. Thanks for all the help

[MONODA]

how about some cross ord puzzles :P

[abuthemagician]

crossword puzzles only make me angry because i don't have a large enough vocabulary to figure them out. :)

[LaRoza]

crossword puzzles only make me angry because i don't have a large enough vocabulary to figure them out. :)

If you don't know the answer, guess.

[Luggy]

Get a book.

[brunolabs]

Most planes have power outlets in the bathroom for electric shavers.
In a 23 hour flight you have to take a leak now and then... :)

[LaRoza]

Most planes have power outlets in the bathroom for electric shavers.
In a 23 hour flight you have to take a leak now and then... :)

Just explain why you have to bring the laptop to the washroom everytime.

(USB Shaver?)

[brunolabs]

To briefly charge the battery in the socket.

[kool_kat_os]

A tip.....if each seat has its own tv in the head rest....dont keep the channel that tells you where you are and how fast your going and when you will arrive....i did on a 747 on my way to india and everytime you take a nap and you wake up it looks like you havent moved on the map....ugh:mad: