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« on: March 01, 2009, 06:46:53 pm »
I am really interested in building a linux mce for my home. I want to first build a hybrid/core system for my living room and later on in the year to next year expand to my other rooms in my house with Media directors. My goal for the hybrid is to just play my backed up dvds and as i can afford to buy all the bells and whistles linux mce can do for my house, slowly add those. IE Lighting control, security system, home stereo with fancy reciever and floor speakers etc. I just finished building a raid 5 storage with 3 1tb drives for media storage. The raid pc is done in windows xp. I would like to use this for storing my dvds for linux mce to play from. I wanted the raid box to be kept in a room i rarely go into since it is loud. I would be fine with moving the raid hard drives to the core/hybrid if the motherboard and components i will be listing can handle it. I would like to buy as many parts as possible from newegg. I would like as little headaches as possible with this build since i am not comfortable doing to much inside linux right now. I am trying to learn it to be more comfortable doing things inside it. ALright onto the build
Case: SILVERSTONE Black Aluminum / Steel LC10B-E ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
I wanted a case that would be able to accomodate the raid drives if i had go that route once i got everything listed together. I don't need a fancy front info screen and would be fine with a smaller one if all my stuff still fits and is close to $100.00
Mobo: ASUS M3N78-EM
I would prefer to go with a regular atx board because i didn't know how many cards and usb slots i need to be able to do all the things linux mce is capable of doing for when i am ready to buy those components. This board also seems to have some problems during the install of LinuxMCE but the solutions i found on the wiki sounded like things i could do.
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400 Brisbane 2.8GHz Socket AM2 65W Black Edition.
Looks like a good cpu to me. Do i need a quad core? I can change to that in the future and move this to a media director when time comes.
Cpu FAN: ZALMAN CNPS 8000
I wanted to upgrade to a zalman cooler to get the fans quieter in case stock fan was to loud plus the added benefits of keeping the cpu cooler and possible a little overclocking
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 250GB SATA
I have found seagates to be very good and don't need a large hard drive since the media is stored elsewhere. I know of the mobo having problems with sata and change that to achi or whatever its called from the wiki.
RAM: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
I feel 2 gigs of ram is enough for this machine.
PSU: mushkin 550200 550W modular
I wanted a modular one to keep cable clutter to a minimum.
Disc Drive: LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE
I picked a IDE drive so i can have as many sata slots available in case i have to create the raid array in the case.
Input Devices: Logitech Dinovo edge
I can't decide if i want this or the fiire remote. I chose the logitech since it had a keyboard and mouse pad on it, hopefully the mouse pad can do the same things that the fiire remote could do with changing volume or video skipping. I wanted the two in one in case i wanted to use the web on the tv as well. I would like to get a webpad in the future if necessary.
My tv is a westinghouse 42", I don't have any home stereo equipment yet because i don't know what i need/want yet. i bought the tv over a year ago before i thought all this was a possibility. What do i need to control the tv? I guess i have a lot of questions because i am not sure how a lot of things work with linux mce.
What else do i need? Did i forget anything? I couldn't find a listing anywhere of how many usb things are needed to plug into the core/hybrid system. I know of a usb ir thingy, probably a usb-rs232 for reciever, One will be filled by the bluetooth dongle for the keyboard. What about the video capture devices? My tv/internet comes through at&t u-verse. How do i capture video from them? I already have hd service from them as well. How do the lighting and security system interact with the core? What do i need on my media directors to interact with the lights in that room? Or are those controlled from the core pc as well?
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