A friend of mine has asked me to help her set up a cheap media server - her current WD media server has packed up. She has an old projector (800 x 600 resolution) and sound system and a bunch of external hard drives that she would ideally like to incorporate into the media centre/server. She also has ADSL and a router which will be close enough to connect the microserver via ethernet.
Unfortunately after I suggested that a HP microserver might work she rushed off and bought an N54GL for R1600 :stop:
I've done some more reading and it seems that this is probably a slightly less than ideal solution - given that there is no sound on the board and the graphics isn't great...
But here's what I'm thinking so far and I would appreciate any input:
Get another 2gb of RAM - currently only has 2gb...
Get a usb sound card or a low profile pcie sound card
Get a cheap low profile graphics card (Nvidia 210 or something... Is this necessary? The onboard card is ATI 4200 I think)
Install XBMCubuntu on the box (will this allow me to boot into a linux desktop environment?)
See if I can also run sickbeard etc. on the box?
Ideas? Suggestions? Short of returning the n54gl :winkwink:
Unfortunately after I suggested that a HP microserver might work she rushed off and bought an N54GL for R1600 :stop:
I've done some more reading and it seems that this is probably a slightly less than ideal solution - given that there is no sound on the board and the graphics isn't great...
But here's what I'm thinking so far and I would appreciate any input:
Get another 2gb of RAM - currently only has 2gb...
Get a usb sound card or a low profile pcie sound card
Get a cheap low profile graphics card (Nvidia 210 or something... Is this necessary? The onboard card is ATI 4200 I think)
Install XBMCubuntu on the box (will this allow me to boot into a linux desktop environment?)
See if I can also run sickbeard etc. on the box?
Ideas? Suggestions? Short of returning the n54gl :winkwink:
