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#1 2008-10-01 22:08:58

OrionFyre
Member
Registered: 2008-03-16
Posts: 68

Arch as a Media Center PC

I'm just now getting my beast of a desktop back up and running from a failed video card (overheated and fried, fan was bad).

It's a rather outdated Athlon XP 3200+, it's decked out nicely with 2 gigs ram and approximately 2.5TB of hard drive space (I'm a big file pack rat). 10/100/1000bT, wireless etc.etc.

I'm intending to can the OS which resides on a 30 GB Cheetah and turn this thing into a media center system. I've checked out things like GeexBox and Movix2 but I don't feel either one completely meets my needs as I also require functionality as a desktop environment when the occasion calls.

Any pointers/wikis/how-to's on molding arch into a system designed for such a task? Ideally it would be extremely lightweight (read as no gnome or KDE depends) and also to act as a fileserver for our little network.

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#2 2008-10-01 22:12:46

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

You can try Enna for E17:

http://gxben.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/i … ia-center/

E17 will work extremely well on that machine.

--EDIT--

Whoops. I guess GeekXBox is using this.

Last edited by skottish (2008-10-01 22:14:04)

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#3 2008-10-02 00:49:08

sash
Member
Registered: 2005-10-16
Posts: 155

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

1. Elisa looks good although I haven't tried it:
http://elisa.fluendo.com/

2. I use Mythtv on a box much less powered than yours.

Both are in the repos.

Last edited by sash (2008-10-02 00:52:27)

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#4 2008-10-02 01:30:55

Echo
Member
From: Ohio, United States
Registered: 2006-05-16
Posts: 239

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

Second the MythTV suggestion. My master slave backend (Myth) pulls double duty as a desktop that I use on occasion. MythMusic (plugin for MythTv) is "o.k" but I wish I could find something a little different that was stable and worked with lirc.

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#5 2008-10-02 02:05:20

OrionFyre
Member
Registered: 2008-03-16
Posts: 68

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

I'll check out this Myth tv. Someone I know kept saying to use mythbuntu. but I seriously was not impressed with the boot times Ubuntu provided me on my laptop.

Anyone have ideas about new tv tuners that are compatible with linux/mythtv and support the ATSC standards switchover?

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#6 2008-10-02 02:22:34

Echo
Member
From: Ohio, United States
Registered: 2006-05-16
Posts: 239

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/ATSC_PCI_Cards

I use the Kworld ATSC 110, Airstar HD5000 and two Air2pc cards (OTA only).

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#7 2008-10-11 01:56:19

mvdvarrier
Member
Registered: 2008-10-04
Posts: 47

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

OrionFyre wrote:

I'm just now getting my beast of a desktop back up and running from a failed video card (overheated and fried, fan was bad).

It's a rather outdated Athlon XP 3200+, it's decked out nicely with 2 gigs ram and approximately 2.5TB of hard drive space (I'm a big file pack rat). 10/100/1000bT, wireless etc.etc.

I'm intending to can the OS which resides on a 30 GB Cheetah and turn this thing into a media center system. I've checked out things like GeexBox and Movix2 but I don't feel either one completely meets my needs as I also require functionality as a desktop environment when the occasion calls.

Any pointers/wikis/how-to's on molding arch into a system designed for such a task? Ideally it would be extremely lightweight (read as no gnome or KDE depends) and also to act as a fileserver for our little network.

Hello,
Please try mythdora 5.0.
http://www.mythdora.com/?q=download
Even though it have gnome as its default Desktop U can install any light weight window manager. It have all the applications  for a media center  OS . If U want more packages, can install through "smart package manager" .
I think after installing basic packages of arch linux, the simple command  " pacman -S xorg xfce4 pvr " will install a lean and mean media center OS.
mvdvarrier


mvdvarrier is a Warrior; Born to Expedite!!!

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#8 2008-10-12 07:28:38

antis
Member
From: sweden
Registered: 2007-05-18
Posts: 108

Re: Arch as a Media Center PC

I've been using freevo as my media center app and I think it works very well. With openbox as the wm you get a fairly lightweight set up.

I'm thiniking of giving elisa a go, but the lack of documentation (as it seems) is putting me off abit.

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