I need some software to...

GoogalyMoogaly · 8 Jun 2014 at 12:23

Hi all,

Hoping you can help me out a bit.
I'm looking to upgrade the HTPC I built for my parents.
Rather than buying Windows 8 for a PC they haven't used that much I thought I'd try using Linux.

I'm pretty new to Linux myself.
I was planning to use Ubuntu as it the version I had most experience with and seems popular so there seems to be a fair amount of internet stuff on it.
Is there a better distro I should consider for this purpose? I'd also like it to do web browsing, e-mail and all the general stuff PCs do (I'm also a little tempted to put Steam on there, just to see what game I have that run on Linux).

Once that's out of the way I'd like some software, free software if I'm honest, to do the following:

Monitor temperature and adjust fan speeds (Gigabyte motherboard, in Windows I'd just use EasyTune, doesn't seem to be a Linux version)
Anti-Virus (is this needed on Linux?)
Firewall
DVD player
DLNA media player/streamer
E-mail client

Suggestions?

Thanks.

Frozennova · 8 Jun 2014 at 23:53

Monitoring temps on Linux can be a bit hit and miss. It works on my current board didn't on my old one. you'll need lm-sensors and there's some gui monitors in package manager but I can think of any names off the top of my head

Anti virus isn't particularly need but the only one I've heard of or used is clam av.

Linux firewalling is very very powerful using iptables but it's very in depth and command line based.

DVDs can be played with VLC player, and I usually used Thunderbird for email

peterwalkley · 9 Jun 2014 at 10:41

Use something like VirtualBox to try out a few distros and pick what you like. Installing to a Virtual Machine for a quick play is much less grief than to the bare metal.

Ask 5 linux users for distro suggestions and you'll get about 15 responses

How compter-savvy are they though ? You could end up in endless support grief because unix is different to windows and they need help doing *everything*.

Steveocee · 9 Jun 2014 at 13:23

GoogalyMoogaly said:
Once that's out of the way I'd like some software, free software if I'm honest, to do the following:

Monitor temperature and adjust fan speeds (Gigabyte motherboard, in Windows I'd just use EasyTune, doesn't seem to be a Linux version)
You can do something like this in the command line but it's really not needed.

Anti-Virus (is this needed on Linux?)
Nope

Firewall
Not needed but it has one built in I believe

DVD player
Not sure on this one

DLNA media player/streamer
XBMC

E-mail client
Thunderbird

Hope that helps a bit

emu · 9 Jun 2014 at 16:35

my current distro is

https://www.linuxliteos.com/

very very impressed with it

robd8 · 9 Jun 2014 at 22:30

Ubuntu has a built in firewall - ufw. There's also a gui for it, gufw, which is pretty easy/straight forward to download and use.

As has already been suggested, use something like virtualbox to install/play around with a few distros. If you do find something you like, create a live cd or bootable usb and load it up and play around with it and see if works ok with all your hardware.

I installed Ubuntu on my PC about a month ago now and I found straight forward to use but I couldn't quite get used to the desktop, so I switched to and now use kubuntu. But I'm still using it and does everything I need to do day-to-day on the PC.

GoogalyMoogaly · 9 Jun 2014 at 22:53

The temperature monitor/fan control is the thing I'm most interested in as the cooler I'll be using is a little bit less substantial than the last cooler I used on the chip (in fact thinking about it the last time I used the chip it may have been with a custom waterloop). So I'm worried that it won't be up to the job.

VLC and XBMC seem to have the media stuff covered, if there's an in-built firewall in Ubuntu then that's another reason to go with that. Anti-Virus is the only other thing left, while Linux is probably not that bad for viruses, malware, etc. as my parent will probably use it most it probably should have them. They may click on the "You have won!" pop-ups thinking they actually have!

Steveocee · 10 Jun 2014 at 15:54

GoogalyMoogaly said:
The temperature monitor/fan control is the thing I'm most interested in as the cooler I'll be using is a little bit less substantial than the last cooler I used on the chip

Will you be overclocking? Why would you on a Linux system and if the cooler isn't up to it, don't fit it and go with an OEM/replacement one.

GoogalyMoogaly said:
Anti-Virus is the only other thing left, while Linux is probably not that bad for viruses, malware, etc. as my parent will probably use it most it probably should have them. They may click on the "You have won!" pop-ups thinking they actually have!

Thats really not an issue, Linux is fine for virus's they can click all the you have won links they want, whatever downloads won't run on a Linux system.

GoogalyMoogaly · 10 Jun 2014 at 16:35

Steveocee said:
Will you be overclocking? Why would you on a Linux system and if the cooler isn't up to it, don't fit it and go with an OEM/replacement one.

Thats really not an issue, Linux is fine for virus's they can click all the you have won links they want, whatever downloads won't run on a Linux system.

No, won't be overclocking and will probably lock off a couple cores and try to reduce the VCore (Phenom II X6 1055T).
I'm hoping the cooler is better than the OEM one, but I believe the AMD OEM coolers are god awful.
I'm just not sure how loud the cooler will be and don't want it running any louder than it has too. BIOSes usually offer quite limited options for tuning this in my experience.

Steveocee · 10 Jun 2014 at 19:10

If you are locking a couple of cores off and dropping the volts you won't be having temperature problems. The AMD coolers are fine for stock clocks (and voltage) and if you are taking cores out then you are going to reduce the temp and increase the area for the heat to disperse over. Will be fine :-)