Home Theater PC

This Friday I bought a new PC to be used as my Linux Home Theater PC (HTPC).
  • ATX 480W
  • Slim HTPC cabinet
  • VGA 512 GFORCE 8500GT, PCI
  • CPU Intel Core 2 DUO E6750
  • DDR2 1GB 667 Kingston
  • DVD/CD DL Samsung
  • Gigabyte GA-P35K - LGA 775
  • SATA 500 Gig HD (Western Digital)
  • Gyration Wireless 3d Mouse and Keyboard.
I tried using the beta of Linux MCE, but it didn't work at all (video problems). I used an older version of Linux MCE and got it working a bit. But I didn't like the fact that it picked it's own name for my machine and user name. I gave up on that and am now using the 8.04 alpha (yes alpha, I never learn) of Mythbuntu.
Mythbuntu worked reasonably well out of the box except a lot of the configuration screens didn't fit my 480P. The OK or Next button would be off screen and I couldn't figure out how to move the window up so I could see it (Alt+Drag with the mouse is the trick).
Other problems I had was that Myth defaults to hiding your mouse cursor so you can't see were you're clicking (there's an option to turn that off).
I realize now that Linux MCE works well with a 3d mouse, but Myth works expects a remote. So I have to use the wireless keyboard for now until I figure out how to better configure Myth to be like Linux MCE.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to need another 8 hours of playing around to get it working the way I want. After that I'm going to hire an electrician to pass the relevant wires up and down so that it all looks nicely organized.
The computer needs to be a little more silent, I may have to buy another, more expensive, power supply since that's the loudest thing in the computer at the moment. Also playing with the various settings for controlling the fans should help a bit.

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