Amazingly, I actually did some of the stuff I was talking about in my last post. Shadow, the Home Theater PC, is now running Windows XP instead of Linux. I played around a bit with the SnapStream demo software, and I think I’m going to buy the card/remote/software bundle once I have some spare cash lying around. I also reformatted Vincent, my gaming box, and it’s been running Linux with the 2.6.6 kernel stably for about a week now. I’ve started playing Neverwinter Nights again, this time under Linux, and it seems to actually run better than when I was playing in Windows. I still need to get around to reinstalling WinXP on that box again, as there are some games that don’t want to run very well in Linux, even with the Transgaming version of Wine. Ah well.
I’ve also been thinking of the home router project. Rather than getting an EPIA CL board right away, I’ve been thinking of using my old K6-2 350 board and throwing OpenBSD on it. It’s mostly just to get used to using OpenBSD as a router/firewall, since I’d like to switch the firewalls at work to it. Maybe I’ll get to that in the next few nights. This will be replacing my Sparcstation 10 running NetBSD, which is doing a fine job as a home router, but the hard drive makes annoying noises.
Just a list of stuff I would like to do computer-wise at the moment. Most of them will probably never get done due to lack of money or time, but I can still dream, right?
- Get a VoIP phone for home. Currently looking at VoicePulse, which has some pretty good rates, like unlimited local and 200 minutes long distance for $15/mo. I might actually do this in the near future. I’d like to build my own voice system thing with Asterisk, but then I’d need to buy more expensive parts to use analog phones again, or buy VoIP phones.
- Build a home router. Been thinking of this for a while. I’m currently using Interceptor, my sparcStation 10 for this, but it’s hard drive is noisy and it’s extremely slow, so I can’t really play around with Snort on it. Ideally, I’d like to build a small box using a VIA EPIA CL board, but they’re kindof expensive. I might build up one of my current systems to do it first, just taking out the hard drive and putting in a flash device. Probably going to be putting OpenBSD on this one.
- Reformat my HTPC and put Windows XP on it instead of Linux. I’ve had way too many issues trying to get Linux to get decent TV output, so I’m going to let Windows have a shot at it. Also, I’ve been eyeing a bundle from SnapStream that includes their TiVo-like software, their RF remote control, and a Hauppauge TV tuner with MPEG encoder. I’ll see how it goes. I don’t really watch enough TV to justify it at the moment, but I would like to be able to catch a few things.
- Reformat my WinXP box. It needs it anyway, it’s got a bunch of funky things going on, so it probably needs a good brainwashing. I think I’m going to try dual booting it with Linux again now that the 2.6.6 kernel is out, along with some patches to make it more stable (hopefully) on nForce2 boards (which I have.)
- Redoing the I-Opener. I never really got it to the point I wanted to before, so I’m thinking of taking a stab at it again. I found a neat CF board that’s the same size and shape as a 2.5” laptop hard drive, so I was thinking of replacing the drive in the I-Opener with a flash card, so as to cut down on noise. Maybe I’ll try to find a way to put the stock heatsink back on, then it would run fanless. I’d like to be able to use it as a basic terminal for checking email and doing IRC and AIM.
That’s all I can think of for now. I still want to do the car computer at some point, but my bank accounts are telling me to wait for a bit on it. There’s also the 1 terabyte storage server I’d like to build, just for the fun of it, but again, those drives get expensive. Maybe later on in the year.
(12:31:43) d doornail d: maybe you should set me up w/ that reply for confirmation thingie
(12:31:58) Me: ASK?
(12:32:17) d doornail d: please set me up with the reply for confirmation thingie?
(12:32:33) Me: no no no, the software’s called ASK, Active Spam Killer
(12:32:37) d doornail d: sorry — maybe i should ask you to set me up w/…
(12:32:40) d doornail d: LOL
(12:32:46) d doornail d: um, yes?
