Building an HTPC. Part 6: Installing Ubuntu

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
Sorry for the pause in posting, but trouble with the multimedia software (meaning I wasn’t sure I was going to stick with the open-source plan), lack of time to fix the problems, and then vacation, prevented me from posting this. But now things are back on [...]

Building an HTPC. Part 5: The rest of the hardware

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3,
Part 4.
To make a complete PC, we now need a harddisk. memory, a DVD player and a screen. I also need a wifi card, and of course a tv tuner card for my usage, but I’ll leave them be until it’s time to discuss the installation of the software.
Drives
For a [...]

Building an HTPC. Part 4: Cooling

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
So, what happened with the HTPC? Long time, no update? Well, what happened was that the power supply died, and I didn’t have the time to go and get it fixed for a week. But this saturday I went to Grosbill, and the happily… well, no, they grumpily, but quickly [...]

Building an HTPC. Part 3: The motherboard and processor.

After tearing my hair to figure out what components to buy in part 1, and getting a nice enclosure in part 2, we now come to part 3, the motherboard.
Dealing with riser cards
The enclosure I got has a low profile, which is solved on the ordinary way with riser cards, that is, a card [...]

Building an HTPC. Part 2: Enclosure and remote control.

Yes, yes, I promised blog posts about Python and Zope. That will come. But I also promised some friends to write about my HTPC experience, so I’ll do that first. In part 1 I complain a lot and tell you to buy something finished instead. I stand by that, but if you are a masochist [...]

Building an HTPC. Part 1: Why you shouldn’t build one at all.

I’m currently building a Home Theater PC, that is a PC to use as a multimedia system for watching TV, video and playing music. This has been quite some effort, and to be quite honest, my recommendation if you want to do this is to buy a finished one, unless you have unlimited amounts of [...]