I need suggestions on how to go about my project to create a media center/server. my objective is to turn an old pc 2ghz, 512mem, onboard graphics into a box that I can play stored media files music, avi's, etc. . I would also like to have a pvr for tv but that is secondary, and a remote would be nice too. I'm not sure what software would be best for my project. I have been looking at mythTV, and freevo; Not sure what would be best. Also any suggestions on hardware upgrades would be appreciated, but I also am on a slim budget. I know I will need to invest on a decent tv card. Thanks guys.

If you're going to do heavy graphics, it'd work, but adding more RAM will make it snappier.
Ideally, can you tell us what the on board graphics are?
eg try
lshw
or
lspci
pref as root.

Hi,

A simple google search for 'Video jukebox'.
You could trim the search to get a more defined information.

Sorry it took me awhile to get back to this post. I just got physical control over the box today, here are the specs. I think i decided to go with mythbuntu for ease. Right now I plan on grabbing a 1tb drive and a PVR-150 to start, then upgrading the memory later. let me know if i am on the right track.

*-pci
description: Host bridge
product: 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
configuration: driver=agpgart-intel module=intel_agp
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits


*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 20
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 640MiB
capacity: 2GiB
*-bank:0
description: DIMM SDRAM Synchronous 266 MHz (3.8 ns)
product: None
vendor: None
physical id: 0
serial: None
slot: A0
size: 512MiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 266MHz (3.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: DIMM SDRAM Synchronous 266 MHz (3.8 ns)
product: None
vendor: None
physical id: 1
serial: None
slot: A1
size: 128MiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 266MHz (3.8ns)
*-cpu
description: CPU
product: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.00GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 5
bus info: cpu@0
version: 15.2.7
slot: Socket 478
size: 2GHz
capacity: 2800MHz
width: 32 bits
clock: 400MHz
capabilities: boot fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts sync_rdtsc cid
configuration: id=0



clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=i810_smbus latency=0 module=i2c_i810