[mythtv-users] Yet another noobie sanity check ;-)

[Brad]

I've been watching this list for a couple months now and have waded 
through the messages more times than I care to admit, but being a 
complete noob to all this I'm forced to ask for the lists guidance 
with my hardware purchase. I know, I know... I've seen the countless 
other similar requests, but naturally, they don't cover my intended 
combinations. Its a lot of money, and hopefully someone with more 
knowledge can confirm I'm not throwing it out the window.

This is intended to be a combined front/backend. Mostly for TV 
recording and playback (via s-video and tv-out), storage, playing and 
ripping of DIVX and MPG4 movies, DVDs, also a music server for all my 
CDs (I plan to rip them all eventually). I also want to have it act 
as a file server for my Mac, probably via SMB, but I can work that 
out later. Its, hopefully, going to be in my living room - so it 
needs to be quiet. I want to be able to add more video capture cards 
in the future and possibly a separate myth frontend for the bedroom.

Case		Asus Aria
Power Supply	inc (aria)
Motherboard	Shuttle MN31N
CPU		AMD Athlon XP2000+ (1.67GHz) Thoroughbred Retail
256 Mb		Samsung 256Mb DDR333 PC2700
CPU Cooler	?? Something quiet
Case Fan		inc (aria)
200G HD for storage	Seagate Barracuda 7000.7 200G 7200RPM ATA100 8M OEM
Sound card (5.1 min)	inc (motherboard)
DVD super drive (DVD +-RW,CDRW)	LG 4082B OEM WHT
TV Tuner/Capture 	Hauppauge PVR-250 (or MCE)
TV OUT		Aopen GE Force4 MX440SE

The questions:
1) This motherboard looks great for me. all the headers supplied in 
the case (USB, Firewire, SPDIF) plus expansion for the future. Is 
anyone using it sucessfully? Particularily I'm interested that I'll 
be able to get all on-board features working (sound, usb, firewire, 
SPDIF, network, etc). Is there a cheaper motherboard available that 
has all these features (perhaps w/o onboard video, which I don't 
think I'll be using anyway)?

2) is there any point in a writeable DVD drive? Form what I can tell, 
Myth doesn't support writing dvds yet, if its even possible from 
Linux.

3) can someone suggest a quiet cpu cooler that fits in this case?

4) can I really get away with 256Mb Ram? I'm trying to keep the costs 
down (its already more than I was prepared to spend)

5) how much space is needed for the system? I'm hoping to install a 
small HD with just the system on it. I have a few *old* drives, maybe 
1.6G - 3G lying around... is that enough? I'm probably dreaming, but 
I'd like not to have to buy a 40G just for the system.

suggestions/recommendations/swift-kicks-to-the-head appreciated  ;-)

Its great to see such a vibrant community around this project. all of 
your input is most appreciated!

Brad