Linux Jukebox...

I've got a little project coming up for my parents, and I'm going to take an old system they have and basically create a jukebox to hook up to their home theater system. This box is dreadfully slow with the Win2k install that's on there now, so I'm gonna wipe it and install Linux. Anyone done this? I'm trying to think of a distro that's lightweight using probably XFCE. basically all I need this thing to do is rip CD's to probably high-quality OGG or FLAC, play them preferably using S/PDIF out from the SBLive Card or the external SBLive USB box, and possibly burn CDs. All while outputting to the TV through HDMI.

This should be a bit of fun. Anyone done anything like this? Got any distro recommendations? I'm thinking of Knoppix or MEPIS, but whatever works.

 

I had Ubuntu Server Edition installed on an old 800MHz pentium 3, worked a treat. The server version is basically a barebones setup so you can build up the system from there. No GUI out of the box. The plus side is because of that there isn't many daemons running in the background by default, and it didn't take up march hard drive space.

good luck with it

 

Look into MythTV. That's a great media center. It's primarily built around tv recording, but I've used it as a video and music jukebox to good effect.

 

Yep, I'd seriously consider Myth. Or at least try it out if you have time to mess with a few things. Myth isn't a linux distro in itself though, so you'll need a system to use as a base for it.

Here is a guide to getting MythTV set up using Ubuntu Server.

 

I think myth might be a bit heavy duty for what I want to do. All I want is audio playback. The only video I need is so that my parents can rip/burn CDs and search the music library.

there's actually a distro based on Knoppix that integrates MythTV called knoppmyth or something