One box to rule them all - It's a challenge

Khannie

Looking to reduce the number of computers in the house by 1. I current have a HTPC and a server box / desktop.

The HTPC is a 3 GHz pentium 4. Not terribly shabby. It is old enough though. On board ATI graphics. IDE hard drive. IDE DVD-ROM. 1G of ram. Hardware MPEG-2 card for the TV side of things.

It is connected by 100Mb ethernet to the server box / desktop for file sharing.

Spec on the server box / desktop is:
Q6600 @ 2.8GHz
2G of ram
3 x 750G hard drives in raid 5 for storage
Nvidia 8800GTS graphics card (320MB version)
2 sound cards (long story) - 1 on board, 1 PCI

So what I'd like to do is this; Ditch the HTPC and have the server box do everything. I'd like to output MythTV from one of the video out slots on the 8800GTS and a normal desktop from the other. I would like to divide the sound cards in such a way that anything launched from the MythTV session would output sound from one sound card and anything launched from the desktop session would launch sound from the other.

Apart from the obvious electricity savings, the HTPC is struggling with decoding high bitrate high def stuff and I'm not prepared to invest any more in it tbh.

So....Is this possible? Am I demented?

Your thoughts on a postcard....

MacGyver

upgrade to gigabyte ethernet for a start if its gonna be file sharing and i assume downloading at the same time. and maybe a sat tuner as well, get the best of both worlds.

Khannie

.... I'm trying to get rid of the network altogether and just use the one box for HTPC and file server / desktop. But yeah, a DVB-T card is likely too.

Khannie

Nobody know if it's possible?

Khannie

You're all rubbish. RUBBISH!

loldog

Khannie wrote: »

You're all rubbish. RUBBISH!

Yeah, we're all n00bs here when it comes to a question like that. Maybe try the Debian forums, if you're using a Debian distro. The only thing I can think of is that you can select your sound device in the Hardware section of Sound Preferences on the Gnome desktop.

.

niallb

Get a taste of VortexBox. It's designed mostly for audio, and has a lot of good features even if you just install it for a week to automatically convert all your CDs to flac and mp3.

Great default install based on fedora. It's also got a web frontend, so there's no GUI installed. I was able to use yum to install mythtv front and back ends. My machine was not as powerful as yours as it's built to be silent, but apart from one hiccup with mysql settings, it was very easy to get both running. My performance on myth was poor, so I haven't really pursued it.
2 sound cards are ideal, and can be used for two independent audio zones if you have an amp with the inputs.
From a desktop point of view, you could seperate the soundcards with pulseaudio,
though it might ruin the sound for your mythtv.
Does your graphics card have onboard video decoders of any type?

digme

Khannie wrote: »

Looking to reduce the number of computers in the house by 1. I current have a HTPC and a server box / desktop.

The HTPC is a 3 GHz pentium 4. Not terribly shabby. It is old enough though. On board ATI graphics. IDE hard drive. IDE DVD-ROM. 1G of ram. Hardware MPEG-2 card for the TV side of things.

It is connected by 100Mb ethernet to the server box / desktop for file sharing.

Spec on the server box / desktop is:
Q6600 @ 2.8GHz
2G of ram
3 x 750G hard drives in raid 5 for storage
Nvidia 8800GTS graphics card (320MB version)
2 sound cards (long story) - 1 on board, 1 PCI

So what I'd like to do is this; Ditch the HTPC and have the server box do everything. I'd like to output MythTV from one of the video out slots on the 8800GTS and a normal desktop from the other. I would like to divide the sound cards in such a way that anything launched from the MythTV session would output sound from one sound card and anything launched from the desktop session would launch sound from the other.

Apart from the obvious electricity savings, the HTPC is struggling with decoding high bitrate high def stuff and I'm not prepared to invest any more in it tbh.

So....Is this possible? Am I demented?

Your thoughts on a postcard....

maybe unix isn't for you?

barura

I'd recommend still using the other box for a htpc. Combining the two is a little counter intuitive if you are really using the htpc as a server as well.

I'd recommend grabbing a cheap 9400gt to help with the decoding and you should be gravy and using the htpc as a server. Maybe I'm crazy but I thought it would be htpc/server and your desktop rather than the htpc and desktop/server setup you have!

Khannie

barura wrote: »

I'd recommend grabbing a cheap 9400gt to help with the decoding and you should be gravy and using the htpc as a server.

The HTPC has a few physical limitations (or I would go the route you suggest). It has no AGP slot and no PCI-express slot. It has 2 PCI slots and one of them is free, but space in the box is limited (it is a small case). Also there is only room for 1 hard drive.

barura

Just check out some pci decoder cards on ebay. Also, if space is so limited get a 1.5tb drive or even a NAS drive to help out with that!

Khannie

Yeah, that's a decent idea. If I can get a cheap x264 capable PCI card then I might just buy that to get me out of the current hole.

There are other issues with the current HTPC though (IDE hard drive that I'm reluctant to upgrade but it's running out of space). I just don't really want to invest money in it especially when there's enough oomph in the main PC to cover x264 decoding + all the usual crap I do.

Definitely wont be going the NAS route for a few reasons. Mostly it's cost, but also I have the linux kernel RAID running on the main computer. Again I'm reluctant to spend money on this instead of other (more fun) things.

edit: I would like to reduce my electricity bill too so that's another reason for trying to remove the current HTPC from the equation.

Khannie

Ok, some googling leads me to believe that hardware x264 in the old box is a dead duck. The mythtv website has this to say about vdpau:

No AGP cards support this feature (PCI cards exist but lack the necessary bandwidth for non-VDPAU HD).

So I suppose that's that.

barura

Hmmm. Well, how much to you have at your disposal?
I mean for ~250 you could grab a mini-atx board with an ion chipset and go that route. But if you're trying to save money and do your idea, it shouldn't be too hard under linux. I mean, you can even do it in windows!
Just use something to route your audio that way. I think it's called "JACK" or something along those lines. Also, I'm sure a quick xorg conf would sort out that idea of video on one screen and desktop on the other. It shouldn't be too difficult and now that I think about it, those p4's were very power hungry. Even compared to your quad core. Sorry man, just re-read your post and actually put some thought into a reply!

Mathiasb

I would install Archlinux. Run two xservers, one which runs XBMC, or MythTV if you prefer (XBMC doesn't do TV), and the other one which you'll use for whatever. 1 server per output. That way, if you somehow manage to crash your X server while playing a game or whatever, the MythTV stuff is uninterrupted.

Capt'n Midnight

if you want to reduce the ESB bill then get a power meter and check how much the boxes are actually using.

Rough rule of thumb, multiply watts by 1.5 to get cost per year in euros.


8766 hours in a year +/-
http://www.esb.ie/esbcustomersupply/residential/your_account/pricing.jsp

Khannie

Mathiasb wrote: »

I would install Archlinux. Run two xservers, one which runs XBMC, or MythTV if you prefer (XBMC doesn't do TV), and the other one which you'll use for whatever. 1 server per output. That way, if you somehow manage to crash your X server while playing a game or whatever, the MythTV stuff is uninterrupted.

That sounds sensible. Might try this over the weekend if I get the time. Tried watching avatar on the HTPC there last night. Total disaster.

sKeith

Khannie,
How did you get on with this, were you able to get the TV sound outputing from one cards, and the desktop noises outputting from different card.

Khannie

Haven't had a chance to try yet. it'll be a few more weeks too.

irish_stickman

Mathiasb wrote: »

I would install Archlinux. Run two xservers, one which runs XBMC, or MythTV if you prefer (XBMC doesn't do TV)

there are mythTV plugins for XBMC so you can get the best of both

i would go for an Acer Aspire One with XBMC live and attach some USB/eSATA storage