linux as a HTPC

ok so the box im writing this from currently only has a linux install and i dont plan to change that. i dont need HD support. id like to add a sound card with either optical or composite output to connect to my stereo head unit.
its running a nvidia FX 5200 with SVGA SVideo and DVI outputs. AXP2100+ and 256mb of DDR. mostly i want to use it for playing my mp3 collection and to replace my dieing dvd player. ofcourse id want to be able to play some of other digital media. anyways the questions at hand is what distro(suse 10.1 currently) would you recomend, and what hardware upgrades would you sugest(nothing major SC RAM HD is no issue its got 120GB and access to my file server with 750gb more)

As allways the communitys input is allways greatly apreciated.

http://www.mythtv.org/

This may be what your looking for

If you want to watch any form of video, get a hauppauge pvr250 and remove the FX5200. It's TV-out chip is better than the alternatives and it's good for recording TV too.

thats a prety cool bit of software there. im definatly going to bookmark it. while i wasnt realy planing on using it as a DVR of sorts mostly for playback of DVDs and digital audio files. im definatly going to look into it. does anyone have a sugestion on a sound card that has digital outs i could use?

anyone recomend a SC?

klingens said:

If you want to watch any form of video, get a hauppauge pvr250 and remove the FX5200. It's TV-out chip is better than the alternatives and it's good for recording TV too.

Click to expand...

I think you mean the PVR-350. It has the video out.

I use the Knoppmyth variety of MythTV and it works great. I use an old SB Live Value with coax digital out for audio. Worked right out of the box without any tweaking.

As far as video, I use a FX-5200, and have 2x PVR-150 for recording. The FX-5200 is well supported, and from what I've read is much easier to set up under linux than a PVR-350. It also has hardware acell support for MPEG decoding, for DVD's or HD should you ever decide to go that route. I don't know that the quality would be any better with one or the other. The 5200 looks great with S-video on my TV.

thanks for the input. come this spring im going to look into it. originaly i wasnt looking for DVR style support but myth TV seems to be a really nice application suite so i think ill try it out. probably get a tuner card. if the 5200 will provide decent quality output then i likely wont replace it. as i mentioned earlier im not concerned with HDTV quality images therefor i likely wouldnt notice the diffrence between the nvidia output and the hauppage.

Add another vote for MythTV. You can use knoppmyth to try it before you decide to blow out the current install or there are usually pretty good howto's for the major distros on installing mythtv.

good info. do any of you guys use a spacific brand of cable/sat receivers. i noticed on the mythtv page that it says it can control your receiver via usb, firewire, and IR. while ir is going to work absolutly it lacks some features.