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classicsat
03-30-2005, 12:54 AM
Would it be worth it to get an X-box and make it into a General Purpose Linux workstation, or to build a middle of the road PC with TV out (I would like to use a PC monitor too)?

I am running a really old PC (PI-MMX-200)as a workstation, and want to dump a couple hundrend into something I can play media on my TV, plus browse the web and such, play simpler games (said PC has a case and drives I could use for now), and run a richer linux than I can run on the olnd PC

In the case of "building" a PC, I would be partially upgrading my main system (an Athlon1600+), and handing down parts to the old PC (which I am using at this typing).
rc3105
03-30-2005, 02:21 AM
oughta be able to find a used/pawn shop xbox for $100 or less

add usb mouse/kb/printer, gentooX+openoffice and it makes a good bare-bones linux pc for kids homework or whatnot. only has 64m of ram, but even a PIII-700/64/10 is adequate for lots of things (anybody else remember when the fastest consumer pc around was a P66/16/400meg for $3k?)

install a used 40/80/120 hd + some sw like xbmc / xbmp and it becomes a killer media center jukebox for mp3/avi/divx/xvid/mpeg/ty/tmf playback or streaming from net/pc/tivo

( it's worth $100 just to run linux via sw only exploits on microsoft designed "secure" hardware :D )


alternately, build a real linux box (sempron 2400+,512,80,happauge 250) for < $300 and load knoppix or knop+myth for full workstation / pvr use\


*a friend of mine watched all of SG-1 season 8 and battlestar galactica through her xbox before they even aired here (divx off the net) and recently used it for resume and e-mail tag while changing jobs because the hp pavilion xp-sp2 was crippled by spyware - attachments bad, no clicky!!! :eek:
wsly
03-30-2005, 11:42 AM
you can install linux as a standalone app on a modded xbox, allowing the xbox to still retain it's full functionality to play games and allowing you to also run xbmc..
jkrell
03-30-2005, 12:51 PM
This is getting pretty off-topic, but I am just about to switch over my old PC from Windows 98 to Linux using the Knoppix distribution.

Does anyone know of any Linux software that works like XBMC for use on a Linux workstation? Has anyone ever thought of creating a Linux version?? Would be awesome, I think -- all my media files are on my XP SP2 computer, and it would be cool to be able to access media through an XBMC-like interface using the new Linux workstation.
mrblack51
03-30-2005, 02:39 PM
This is getting pretty off-topic, but I am just about to switch over my old PC from Windows 98 to Linux using the Knoppix distribution.

Does anyone know of any Linux software that works like XBMC for use on a Linux workstation? Has anyone ever thought of creating a Linux version?? Would be awesome, I think -- all my media files are on my XP SP2 computer, and it would be cool to be able to access media through an XBMC-like interface using the new Linux workstation.

check out knopmyth (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html)
jkrell
03-30-2005, 03:14 PM
check out knopmyth (http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html)

That's pretty cool. Do you need to have a TV tuner card? I'm not really interested in that, because I use my TiVo to capture TV. I'm just really interested in watching the video, listening to music, and viewing slideshows that are stored on my 200Gb hard drive in my other PC.

I guess my question is, can you set this up like XBMC, where you use bookmarks to give it locations to pull media from? So I could put in my SMB shares and my Tivo IP?? Does it support TiVo .ty files?
wsly
03-30-2005, 06:21 PM
you know there is a version of xbmc for pc.... right?

http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/
jkrell
03-31-2005, 01:29 AM
you know there is a version of xbmc for pc.... right?

http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/

That looks to be just for Windows (unless I am missing something). I want something for Linux.
mrblack51
03-31-2005, 02:58 AM
That looks to be just for Windows (unless I am missing something). I want something for Linux.

mediaportal is the closest thing to xbmc for the pc, but it does infact run on windows XP. If you want a PVR type setup on a linux box, MythTV or Freevo is probably your best bet. I'm not sure about Freevo, but MythTV uses the concept of front ends and back ends. Back ends are systems which generate content, such as a pc with a tuner card. Front ends view the content. The nice thing about this seperation is that, while a front end pc can be a back end as well, you can have multiple backends and multiple frontends. There is some integration of a tivo backend with mythtv as well (mythtivo as i recall).
jkrell
03-31-2005, 01:46 PM
mediaportal is the closest thing to xbmc for the pc, but it does infact run on windows XP. If you want a PVR type setup on a linux box, MythTV or Freevo is probably your best bet. I'm not sure about Freevo, but MythTV uses the concept of front ends and back ends. Back ends are systems which generate content, such as a pc with a tuner card. Front ends view the content. The nice thing about this seperation is that, while a front end pc can be a back end as well, you can have multiple backends and multiple frontends. There is some integration of a tivo backend with mythtv as well (mythtivo as i recall).

Awesome! It sounds like MythTV is for me...
jkrell
03-31-2005, 01:50 PM
alternately, build a real linux box (sempron 2400+,512,80,happauge 250) for < $300 and load knoppix or knop+myth for full workstation / pvr use\

rc3105 --

Can you PM me more detailed specs of a low cost Linux box -- I want to build one, but I am new at all this, so I don't know what sempron 2400+ means, and I assume you mean 512Mb of Ram, 80Gb of HDD. Can you seriously do all this, with a Happauge 250, for under $300 (assuming no monitor of course). Do you need a specific video card and/or sound card or will "stock" ones do the trick.

Thanks!

Krell
jkrell
03-31-2005, 01:53 PM
Wandering farther away from the intended subject matter of these forums...

Does anyone know a way to load Knoppix and Knopmyth onto a PC without a boot disc? I read something that said you can supposedly do this over a network from a PC already running the boot CD. I'd like to skip CD/DVD drives on the Linux box I want to build, and I suppose I could swap the drive from my Windows PC, but I don't want to open up my Windows PC if I don't have to.

This is gonna be fun!!
mrblack51
03-31-2005, 02:23 PM
hmm, maybe i will pick up one of those PVR-500 cards...dual tuner hardware encoding...nice
jkrell
03-31-2005, 06:05 PM
Is this the wrong place to ask whether anyone has come across a tv tuner/capture card that does a good job with HDTV? I get HDTV via OTA, and would like to experiment with recording the HD streams on a PC (and then converting to Divx HD).

Preferably, this would all be done using the new Linux box I am going to *try* to build.
mrblack51
03-31-2005, 07:38 PM
Is this the wrong place to ask whether anyone has come across a tv tuner/capture card that does a good job with HDTV? I get HDTV via OTA, and would like to experiment with recording the HD streams on a PC (and then converting to Divx HD).

Preferably, this would all be done using the new Linux box I am going to *try* to build.

there is a card specifically designed for linux, i think its like an hd3000 or something like that. check www.avsfuroum.com under the htpc forum, they have done lots of hdtv card stuff