Linux and movies - 4

You don't have to ditch your xp machine, but you have to spend money for new stuff. First, you need a wired network. I use 100 Meg Cat5 wire, and switches, but all the new stuff is coming out at Gigabyte speeds, which would be useful for transferring files. Because of streaming, you don't need that speed for now.

You need a decent computer. I buy from parts, so I can avoid the 'Windows tax'. Ask a kid to do it! I would go for a standard motherboard, with a dual AMD-64 chip, and at least 2 Gigs of memory. I'd pack in a very large disk.

Loading Linux is easy. There is lots of help on the internet. I use vanilla Debian 64 bit. The 64 bit is magnificent if you are doing several big things at once, like downloading, converting and streaming.

On the Linux server, you need to load MediaTomb, which is the data streamer. Buy a PS3 as your tv top player. It's heavily subsidized by Sony, and is great even if you never play a game! It has built-in divx, up-scaling, and blu-ray.

For file fetching I use gtk-gnutella most of the time. You also have to ditch cable internet, since they bitch about this sort of use. Even the phone line thing has its ups and downs. Since I also create content, you really need full time access to bandwidth you pay for.

That's it! I'd be happy to answer any questions about this interesting, and totally legal hobby.