tired of windows want to switch to linux

[drag]

Still though if your a actual 'media junky' so to say Mythtv blows MCE out of the water in terms of capabilities. Especially once you start adding on third party plugins and such. The trouble of setting it up should be a small thing if your in a position to realy take advantage of it.

I am still curious about what device the other person is asking about. A veriaty of Linux applications support things like UPnP for 'media extenders' or whatnot. With Mythtv 2.0 they added rudementary support that will allow you to view recorded TV shows and listen to music that was tested to work with a few UPnP devices (hardware and software) and a couple of them were D-Link things. Other programs may have better UPnP support, like maybe 'GeexBox' I don't know since I don't own one of those devices.

For details:
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/UPnP

Eventually this sort of thing will be easy. It's not Mythtv's goals to be easy for new users, they are more concerned about capabilities rather then ease of installation. That's just the goal of the project. Different projects are different. For instance there is a commercial company called Fluendo that is working on improving multimedia support for Linux based around the 'gstreamer' framework. Currently they provide legal Mp3 codecs for Linux users, but eventually they'll get support for WMV and other things.

They have a few official software projects and a few associated with them. Things like Video NLE's (Pitivi and Diva are two loosely associated things), audio editing tools, and streaming servers. For a media center thing they have a project called Elisa with nice opengl interface. Of course all this stuff is realitively new and under development.

It's funny since most digital stuff in movies is developed and rendered on Linux boxes, but it's still a gray area legally to be able to play it back on Linux for consumers.

 

[pkme2]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

P3s and some older P4s make excellent candidates for Linux.

I love when people describe P3s as ancient machines, the machine I'm typing this on right now is a dual Athlon 1.2. As long as you have enough memory the CPU speed isn't that important for things like email, web browsing, etc.

I still have some older Athlon mobos lying around and I'm considering reviving them as Ubuntu rigs. One can always breathe new life into their older machines if they Ubuntu it.
Ubuntu doesn't require much to work. Think of all the free software out there. Its a new adventure I see for aging machines.

 

[Nothinman]

I don't deny you can have a nice desktop under L (when it works, that is)...and standard apps like staroffice and Webbrowinsing.

My 'nice desktop' works more frequently than my Windows desktop did way back when I used Windows. Not that I had a lot of problems with Windows, but I have even less with Linux.

Ask yourself why Linux is under "non revenue generating" in any PC store.

Why should I care? You think Windows makes PC stores a lot of money?

But it comes down to software IMHO.

Exactly and all of the software that I want to run runs on Linux and is equal or better quality than the Windows equivalents IMO.

 

[h0nke]

I would always reccomend booting Knoppix on any desktop before commiting to a full install of any distribution. This way it will give you a heads up on compatibilty. Sometimes even take note of what drivers are used (once you confirm the hardware works).

For home server go with Fedora. Thats my 2 cents.

Good luck. Windows sucks!

 

[dhaddox]

Only convert your file/webserver to linux when you are sure your lan is ready for a 1-2 week downtime because that is how long it will take you to get it all set up if you start out knowing nothing about linux. Be prepared to do a LOT of reading.

OTOH, it's insanely easy to get desktop linux up and running. All these people who say there is no software for linux are doing so out of ignorance. I've been using it for years, and I lived through the early days when it actually was a geek-oriented OS, and I can say with relative certainty that this is not the case anymore. The major obstacle of finding the linux program you are looking for is not knowing what the name of it is. (amarok = mp3 player? kaffeine = movie player?) yea.

 

[M00T]

Originally posted by: dhaddox
Only convert your file/webserver to linux when you are sure your lan is ready for a 1-2 week downtime because that is how long it will take you to get it all set up if you start out knowing nothing about linux. Be prepared to do a LOT of reading.

OTOH, it's insanely easy to get desktop linux up and running. All these people who say there is no software for linux are doing so out of ignorance. I've been using it for years, and I lived through the early days when it actually was a geek-oriented OS, and I can say with relative certainty that this is not the case anymore. The major obstacle of finding the linux program you are looking for is not knowing what the name of it is. (amarok = mp3 player? kaffeine = movie player?) yea.

Although, with good package management systems like apt and portage, you can easily figure out what is available.

 

[supertunger99]

Amarok is an awesome mp3 player. I have all three OSs at home: winxp, linux and macosx. I prefer it way over itunes and windows media player. That's my 2 cents.

Also, there is picasa for linux now.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: supertunger99

Also, there is picasa for linux now.

Who cares when you have f-spot?

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: dhaddox
Only convert your file/webserver to linux when you are sure your lan is ready for a 1-2 week downtime because that is how long it will take you to get it all set up if you start out knowing nothing about linux. Be prepared to do a LOT of reading.

OTOH, it's insanely easy to get desktop linux up and running. All these people who say there is no software for linux are doing so out of ignorance. I've been using it for years, and I lived through the early days when it actually was a geek-oriented OS, and I can say with relative certainty that this is not the case anymore. The major obstacle of finding the linux program you are looking for is not knowing what the name of it is. (amarok = mp3 player? kaffeine = movie player?) yea.

apt-get install apache2 is really hard?

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: nweaver

Originally posted by: dhaddox
Only convert your file/webserver to linux when you are sure your lan is ready for a 1-2 week downtime because that is how long it will take you to get it all set up if you start out knowing nothing about linux. Be prepared to do a LOT of reading.

OTOH, it's insanely easy to get desktop linux up and running. All these people who say there is no software for linux are doing so out of ignorance. I've been using it for years, and I lived through the early days when it actually was a geek-oriented OS, and I can say with relative certainty that this is not the case anymore. The major obstacle of finding the linux program you are looking for is not knowing what the name of it is. (amarok = mp3 player? kaffeine = movie player?) yea.

apt-get install apache2 is really hard?

you're forgetting "service httpd start" and "chkconfig httpd on" Man that's like, 3 commands, how do us poor linux admins manage?!?!

 

[Nothinman]

you're forgetting "service httpd start" and "chkconfig httpd on" Man that's like, 3 commands, how do us poor linux admins manage?!?!

I could be wrong but I thought the postinst script did those for you.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

you're forgetting "service httpd start" and "chkconfig httpd on" Man that's like, 3 commands, how do us poor linux admins manage?!?!

I could be wrong but I thought the postinst script did those for you.

oh, maybe. I'm a CentOS admin remember

 

[Nothinman]

oh, maybe. I'm a CentOS admin remember

Oh yea, I forgot that RPM pre/postinst scripts aren't nearly as helpful as those on Debian/Ubuntu.