I need some software to...

[GoogalyMoogaly]

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.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

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!

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

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.