[mythtv-users] Cheap Possible Frontend

[Brian Wood]

On May 10, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Alex Chejlyk wrote:

> I looked on Pricegrabber and found this Asus barebones system for  
> $85'ish.
> http://www.pricegrabber.com/ 
> p__Asus_Asus_Terminator_C3_Via_C3_Barebone_System,__6933053
> The link below is to Asus
> http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx? 
> l1=1&l2=2&l3=0&model=402&modelmenu=1

Wow, that's a lot of machine for $85, but I'm having trouble telling  
from the listings if it actually includes the CPU or not, I'm  
assuming no RAM or HDD or optical drive.

Also, things like the TV-out and audio out are listed as "option", in  
my experience finding these optional boards for non-mainstream boxes  
like this can be extremely difficult.

In any case I've got my little $119 special running. Turns out it is  
smart enough to boot from a USB CD drive, but booting from a USB 1.1  
device is a tad slow.

Just running Knoppix from the CD to check it out right now, sure  
seems to  be a full-blown PC, small and quiet and doesn't look too bad.

If you had to buy the extra parts it would be about $30 for an HDD,  
$30 more for RAM, $10 for an adapter and $10 for a CD drive, for a  
total of $200, a little high, but given that I'm using "junk" it's  
not a bad deal.

OTOH I'm seeing re-furbed  Delll 866PIIIs with CDRW/DVDROM, 128MB  
RAM, 20GB HDD, floppy, KB, mouse, and Windows 2K for $150, guess old  
junk is getting cheap.

Now to pick a distro to load onto it, probably Gentoo (he ducks to  
avoid thrown objects). Also need to find those video drivers that  
Dennis Hand mentioned.