I have a budget of $6,000 to build 2 new computers for myself. I’ve paid for my new computers and am now waiting for them to be built and delivered.
In my living room I will set up a media centre with a large hard drive to hold all my music, television recordings, photos, games and movies. With a large screen for display this will be my main source of entertainment.
I’ll also have a laptop for web browsing, writing and general computing but the laptop will be able to access the media centre via my wireless network to stream movies, music, etc. I most likely will also want to play games on the laptop.
I already have a wireless router and network set up in my house. I also have a Logitech Z-5500 5.1 Dolby Digital speaker system with digital S/PDIF connection.
With your assistence I also want to develop a wireless mesh network in Naracoorte. The requirements of such a network should also play into the hardware requirements of my new computers.
To work out the specifics of my new computers I have used the following websites:
- Free Software Foundation’s list of Hardware Devices
- P2P Foundation’s list of open hardware
- Pioneer Computer’s DreamBook that I modelled my laptop specifications on
- Ubuntu’s Free Software Laptop wiki page
- Better Access Media Centres Australia’s Specifications
- Mythbuntu’s Recomended Hardware
- OzMyth’s Hardware Guide
- MythTV’s Hardware prerequisites
- Ubuntu Documentation’s list of Wireless Cards Supported
- Air-Stream Wireless’s How-To Guides
Laptop MSI GX630/AMDZM80/4G/320GB/V-HPr
Processor
- AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 Dual Core 2.1 GHz
Display
- 15.4 inch
- WXGA
- ACV (Amazing Crystal Vision)
Graphics Card
- NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT
- 512Mb DDR3 VRAM
Memory
- 4 GB (2×2 GB)
- DDR2 667
Hard Drive
- 320 GB SATA
- 5,400 rpm
Optical Drive
- DVD Super Multi
Extra
- VIDIA MCP77
- 4-in-1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
- Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN & Modem Module
- Built-in 802.11 b/g WLAN (will add either 802.11n internal card or Netgear WN511 Cardbus Adapter)
- Bluetooth V2.0+EDR
- Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) x1
- USB 2.0 ports x3
- Mic-In port x1
- Headphone Output x1
- Modem port x1
- LAN port x1
- PCI Express Card x1
- eSATA x1
- HDMI x1
- Li-Ion 6 cells
- Targus carry bag
- integrated 2.0 Megapixel webcam
Operating System
Media Centre
Processor
- AMD Athlon 64 Quad Phenom 9950 2.6 GHz 4MB cache AM2 CPU
Display
Graphics Card
- Asus EN9600GT/HTDI/512MB
Memory
- Kingston 2GB DDR2 800MHz x2
Hard Drive
- Seagate 1 Tb Barracuda ST31000340AS 32MB cache
Optical Drive
- Pioneer BDC-502BK Blue-Ray player
Case
- Antec Fusion Remote Max HTPC
Extra
- Asus M3N-H/HGMI GF8300 AM2+ GBL HD Audio Firewire, S/PDIF, PCI x3, PCI-E16 x1, PCI-E x1
- Netgear WN311B RangeMax Wireless-N PCI Adapter
- Belkin Bluetooth USB Adapter v2.0 (100m range) (mounted internally)
- Fusion DFUDVI-130 Dual 4 tuner card
- Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU
Operating System
- Mythbuntu Linux
- … but should be able to run gNewSense Linux without proprietry drivers
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