Hi guys. I recently replaced my pc with a new imac. Now, I was looking for something creative and practical to do with my old pc. I watched an interesting episode of systm on revision3.com. They made a Myth TV box on episode 2 of Systm. I like the idea of making a linux DVR out of my old computer. It seems to be a lot better than just throwing it away. I have two questions.

1. I'd like the ability to access my linux desktop remotly over the internet. Just say, I was at work and I wanted to access my desktop to set a timed recording for heros, I could set that up without being near my computer. Is there something out there that is kind of like go to my pc

2. I'd like to host files to other computer on my network. I get so many videos, photos, disk images, games and other stuff I'd like to have something to store them in. I guess like a file server. Before I saw the systm episode, I was thinking of getting a mac capture card and a raid. But this looks like a lot more fun. I don't know if I should use a remote desktop program from the first question, if there is one, or an ftp client or something else? What do some of you think might be a handy way to set this up?

If you set up mythtv on that box, I think "mythweb" will allow you to schedule programs to be recorded via a web browser. You will need Apache and a few other things running as well, but your distros package manager will take care of that.

For any kind of web server, you need to know what type of modem / router you have. Most ISPs give you a dynamic IP address, so you need to register a domain name from dyndns.org. Then forward port 80 on your router to your web server box, and you should be able to access your web server from the outside world.

For a file server, you can use SSH which allows remote access like telnet but more secure. SSH also includes SFTP, which works like FTP. I think Putty will access an SSH server. Since modern Macs are based on Unix, you could also set up a NFS share on the server, and the mac will be able to access the files. Alternatively, look at Samba, which allows you to share files with Windows machines. Macs can also access Samba shares. For remote access, definitely use SSH and for LAN access use either Samba or NFS.

If you want to set up a MythTV box, make sure it has a HUGE hard drive for the recordings. Format this drive with the XFS file system, which is good for large files. One hour of TV recording takes about 2GB, so it will fill up quickly.

I hope this helps
--Ian

OK, I'll try it. But is there anything that can control my desktop from another computer? Like just say I wanted to record a podcast of me and a friend talking over skype. I normally record from a caller in skype running on another computer so that the audio would match. I know there is a skype for linux. Is there a way to launch it, join a call, and record the audio from another location. Again, I think it would be awsome if I could log in and control my desktop from somewhere else.