Linux Media PC

Harvey616 · 16 Jan 2011 at 22:02

Hello all,

Basically, I am wanting to create a media PC through which I can view TV channels, record and pause live tv etc. I want to use Linux as it has a more simple GUI than Windows, so my family will be able to use it easily and will run better on a lower spec. I also don't want to have to break out a keyboard and mouse everytime I wish to watch telly.

I am a complete Linux noob, but have been reading a bit about it.

I was thinking of using Ubuntu and then finding an app that will allow me to do all of the TV related things. I would also like to file share from a partition on the drive to multiple windows computers within the house, is this all possible?

Would it also be possible to stream the TV from the media PC to the Window PCs?

Sorry for quite a bit of text, just want to ensure that this will work

Harvey616 · 16 Jan 2011 at 22:50

Thanks, I will look into those now

Harvey616 · 16 Jan 2011 at 23:18

I think that XBMC appears to be the best option, If I go for say an AMD Athlon II 3GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 9500GT GPU, reckon that it will run okay?

Any other plugins I would need to complete the aims I have?

Harvey616 · 16 Jan 2011 at 23:41

There is a plugin for it called Mythbox that allows you to stream and record live TV

Harvey616 · 17 Jan 2011 at 18:00

Ah nice, what TV card are you using and what is it connected to cable wise?

Harvey616 · 18 Jan 2011 at 17:39

I was looking at the same card, but possibly two of them so that I can record and watch TV at the same time.

Thanks for the linky.

Harvey616 · 18 Jan 2011 at 22:17

Thanks guys

I am thinking of going for XBMC with the Mythbox addon, working as a backend to allow Live TV, but keeping the XBMC as the front end. I ran a quick virtualisation of a Ubuntu system, and it seems to work well