Hello to all. I am a computer enthusiast and I would like to break the bonds of Microsoft. I have several computers all running Windows XP except for an older Compaq DC5750 Desktop which will become a HTPC. It's a decent machine with a Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 4GB DDR2, 1000 MHz FSB, 4 empty PCI slots, and is extremely quiet. So, I'm going to use this project to 'get my feet wet' before taking the plunge. So, if anyone can direct me to the appropriate forum, or discuss it here if that's permitted, I would appreciate your comments. Please keep in mind, I am not familiar with many of the Linux acronyms as this is my very first inquiry.

Thanks to all.

This machine will make a decent HTPC and with this specs you can use any distribution you want.
The question is how wet you want to get your feed. You can use a somewhat out-of-the-box distro for HTPCs, like Mythbuntu, or you choose a rather generic distribution like Debian, Scientific Linux, Arch or Slackware and adapt it to your needs.
Of course you can also go the hard way and set up the machine from scratch with Gentoo or LFS.

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It is more what you want to do with it. If you want to record TV then some great htpc disto's simply don't offer support.

http://www.htpcforums.com/index.php?showforum=30

Any major disto seems to offer support for myth or common stuff.

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My goal is streaming Netflix and live webTV to my HDTV via an HDMI video card. I hadn't considered that recording a stream is a problem for Linux. That sounds like a serious limitation and I'm curious why such a basic media function is not readily available. In my brief research, Mythbuntu and Mint appear to be good choices. I would prefer a distro with the easiest learning curve for a ex-Windows junky (KDE?). Again please excuse my ignorance.

The problem here is Netflix, they have no Linux client.

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I've read that there will soon be a Netflix plugin for Chrome that will give Linux users connectivity. But, I can't find any release date. Is the Chrome OS available?

A netflix plugin has been rumoured since early/mid may, and is meant to be for chromeOS and chrome browser. Hasnt appeared yet as far as I know.

Chome OS is not avaible. There are fakes around, but no offical ChromeOS release. The last thing you would want to run for a HTPC is chrome OS anyway....

By the way, if you are planning on using your HTPC for much in the way of video playing, getting a newer video card would be a good idea (unless you've got a HD2400). The newer cards from ATI/AMD and nVidia have support for hardware video decoding, which has lots of advantages over CPU video decoding.

In fact netflix does already run on linux. It is just not open sourced yet. The boxee box runs linux and is a fully supported device with netflix.

Seems no hackers have reversed the box even to allow a dual boot even.


Netflix is pretty sure you guys will figure out a way to record shows if they allow it on linux without some other controls.

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A new video card is required to get the HDMI output I want. It sounds like I'm stuck with Win XP.

*blinks* If your card doesnt have HDMI, then how will using winXP help?

There are DVI-> HDMI adapters as well. You wont get audio over the HDMI link though.

The video is integrated at present which I will disable. There are several audio over HDMI video cards available that I can install.

I'll be glad when netflix and directv-sharing are allow in linux, Stuck with directv for another year & have netflix account I can't access thru linux.

I went to the Boxee website and I couldn't find any reason why it wouldn't work for Netflix. Does anyone have Boxee installed and working on Linux?

I would give it a try, there are Ubuntu packages and source code available on that site (didn't know that before), but Netflix isn't available in my country.

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I just went to their site is there a way to convert the ubuntu package to be used in Debian or other Linux distro?
Not trying to hijack thread