htpc
Yayyy! I have my server, and trust me, it is awesome.
Hardware
- TV: Vizio VO42L ($899.99) - Cheap, 1080p, 42", I'll take it.
- Case/PSU: Antec NSK2480 ($99.45) - A beauty of a case, will blend in right beneath a TV and be silent and cool
- Motherboard: Gigabyte 780G GA-MA78GM-S2H ($79.99) - AMD's 780G chipset is an HTPC builder's prayer's answer. Complete with onboard graphics, gigabit ethernet, 4 USB2.0 ports (darnit, not USB3.0), HDMI, digital audio, eSATA, and FireWire, this motherboard will do it all.
- CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4850e (N/A) - Cheap AMD dual core to do the simple things, like serving up a webpage, running a SMB share, and playing videos. Update: On second thought, this CPU is a bit unpowered for playing 1080p and/or running XBMC. I guess I'll either deal with it, or upgrade sooner or later.
- Heatsink: Scythe Ninja Mini ($39.99) - Can run without a fan so it's quiet, and fits just perfectly in the NSK2480.
- Boot drive: Seagate Barracuda 250GB (N/A) - transplanting it from my Dell
- Data drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB x2 ($179.98) - Finally, a 1TB hard drive is at the sweet spot for the best bang for the buck. One for internal, one for daily rsync. It's amazing how fast hard drive prices drop. And drop. And keep dropping.
- Drive enclosure: ICY DOCK MB559US-1S ($39.99) - Holds the drive for backups.
- RAM: Generic 2GB of DDR2-533 ($15.00) - Buying it from a friend and Memtesting it to make sure it works. I'm sure anyone can get a similar price, DDR2-800 to boot.
- DVD Burner: Samsung SH-S223F ($25.99) - Cheap, fast DVD burner
- Keyboard/Mouse: Logitech Cordless EX100 ($24.99) - Reliable company's product sans wires, definitely a plus for an HTPC.
Software
Operating System
Gone are the days of "it just works" in operating systems. I've come to the conclusion that Ubuntu has just become too easy to use. To torture myself and live on the cutting edge, I've installed the amd64 version of Gentoo Linux onto my computer. Although the initial configuration was quite challenging (mostly due to my inability to rtfm), it's been almost smooth sailing ever since then. Gentoo's package management system is reminiscent of BSD, where the source packages are downloaded and then compiled. The advantage of this is that you get to optimize every single piece of software on your machine, choosing what parts you want, and what parts you don't.
Media Center
Working on a 42" screen just isn't fun. So I had to find a media center to attain that 10 feet interface. Since I've chosen Linux, Windows Media Center has been ruled out. However, there are even better alternatives, including the more famous ones, like MythTV. I happen to like XBox Media Center a lot better though, and I've been using it for two years now on my XBox. Now that Aeon Stark is released, I have the most jaw-droppingly beautiful media center setup ever.
Server-y Duties
This one is a toughie. Running a multi-OS network, including several Vista laptops, an XP machine or two, Linux installations, and even a Macbook Pro, means that I have to find a way for everyone to work together. Luckily, I can do just that. The core of the server relies on SSH as the backbone to provide both remote access, secure tunneling, and file transfers. Then the fun begins. The most file sharing occurs via Samba, because everyone can access it really easily. For web access, I use lighttpd. Fun fun fun.