Hey guys,

After hearing about these funny IDE-CompactFlash Adapters I'm going to build some kind of Mediaplayer/HTPC out of my old Slot-1 Box. At the moment there's some Celeron 400 or PIII 450 but I think I'm going to put some VIA c3 in there as they are cheap on Ebay anyway. As for storage I'll just have that CF-Card so I need some small linux distro (maybe some abused slackware ..).

But the problem now is the software. Of course, there's MythTV and stuff. But that's not what I want.
I want the computer to boot into some funny menu from where I can chose (by remote control) between things like:
Tune in Internet Radio A B C D ...
Tune in Internet TV A B C D ...
Play Audio-Content from CD-Rom
Play Video-Content (DivX, Xvid, vcd) from CD-Rom
Show local weather information
Show News
Show Website A B C D

That would be my dream. But is there any software like this? Or any way to get it done by some scripts?
It's going to be used on some TV with a cheap remote (irda) so I'd need some kind of menu structure.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Thanks in advance!

(I'm sorry for the bad English, I guess it's caused not just by some lack of sleep ..)

I use Freevo, but MythTV is also popular

Prior to describing what you want you say "but not mythtv" then you go on to describe all the functionality of mythtv. Why not mythtv?

There are also media-center's that boot right from the CD, nothing to install (basically they run a stripped down OS with mplayer). But they are limited in their functionality. They can play movie files, but you'd have to have then NFS mounted or something like that. They can usually also play mp3's, but seem to be geared towards just basic movie playing from files.

Good Luck with your quest, mythtv or maybe freevo seem more along the lines of what you are looking for.

Cool

Hey, thanks for you answer!

I'm sorry, but I didn't know Myth or Freevo had these features such as listening to streams etc. I guess there are plugins or something?

But let me explain further, the main problem is the size. Myth and Freevo seem to be full featured programs with - welcome to unix - lots of depencies. Not a Problem on my lovely 1700+ homebox but as I have to get all that stuff on an CF-Card. Small Linux Distro, Myth/Freevo, Frickin Depencies.

So that's the point. Does anyone of you know how much space I'd need for that?

Thanks!

if you want a dedicated distro there is geexbox which is barely 7mb in size, but it's not too featureful really. There is Movix too which is listed as being create to run off a CF card. All depends what you want to use it for.

And you can always use NFS mounts. Use your CF card for the basic OS and the dependencies/application, and then for the storage of the files, any addons, etc, you can use NFS mounts.

Cool