New Blue

Ok, so here's the deal. In my upcoming new blog I will only be covering my ideas about Intelligent Control Systems. I don't think I want to expand to have a tech developed blog-like the Lt.-chiefly because I don't think I could produce the same level of consistent quality that he does. Thus my nerdy projects will be covered right here in my main blog.

That being stand-the coverage hasn't bee so good I know.

But to get you up to speed: a long long time ago I thought it would be nice to upgrade the Bluebox(my media machine). I started with upgrading the software and doing a direct comparision of Os's without any changing to the hardware.
I decided to compare Windows to Linux, because I'm not a enough of a socialist/Liberal Artist to use MacOs-it would detect my need for technical computing and boot me right off.

Well for the comparision I used Microsoft's Windows XP with SP2 and Ubuntu 7.10 (at the time the latest version).
I really really like Linux, but I'm no fanboy (from urbandictionary.com:

	A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces.

). It was hard to use Linux at first-there is a lot of stuff that you can do and no really good way to learn how if you don't know. You have to read a lot of documentation that can often be confusing, even for some one who is in college getting a degree in computer engineering. But after working at it I got used to it and really enjoy the control.
As I was learning more about Linux and enjoying the stuff I can do, my Windows installiations started crashing. In fact the harddrive that I had the comparision XP installed on crashed completly. Not just the Os on that drive, but the entire drive itself. In fact I still have that harddrive and I will be throwing it out soon cause it's utterly dead.
Thus the choice became clear-for this project Linux was the way to go.
Now what distro (Linux distrubution) to use? I looked at a bunch, but fairly quickly I decided I wanted the most control, the best documentation, and the best user support-that all comes with Gentoo-the most power distro, but also the most instense.

Now I know the software choices made, but there is only so much that older hardware do, even with Linux calling the shots.

Thus about four months ago the search for better hardware began. I wanted a Q6600 Kentsfield-since intel introduced this quad core this is chip I wanted for the blue box so the search kind of centered on that. Beyond that I asked around and tried to play the balance game between cost and power. After much review this is what I decided on.

Power Supply: Antec is quality brand for an inportant and often overlooked bit, plus it's blue
Video Card: Not the bestest best super card ever, but it should beable to handle what I have for it with ease.
Ram: Corsair is a quality brand and 2 GB is the theorictal limit to what normal Os's can actually address and use, but I can always upgrade later on
Cooler: Keep everything cool, again not the bestest best thing ever, but the best for my needs and budget
Processor: The core of what I wanted. This chips should be able to handle anything I ever have ol' Blue do. It's a beatiful chip, I really really like it even if there exist ones that are faster or better. Read more here. Yes it does support 64 bit computing, yes that's awesome and kind of overkill and yes, i'm considering using a 64 bit Os
Motherboard: Asus is a quality quality brand and they tend to give a lot in one package. In truth this is actually the best component of my system, it can handle more hardcore processors and what more memory and all that, but I figured as this is the bit that brings it all together, I kind of want it to be rock solid
Opitical: sadly modern mobo's (motherboards) generally only support two IDE devices and I have two IDE 500 GB drives. Thus I needed a SATA optical drive to make everything fit.

I have finally ordered those bits all tonight. :-D

From here this project is not done. Naturally I have to install all the hardware and then get the software all working on that. But this is not the completion of the upgrades. The next thing I'm probably going to need is a new case, not because everything won't fit in the one I have now, but because the one I have now isn't easy to work on and I might need the extra cooling power (the major function of a computer case is to keep everything within cool by properly setting up a good airflow). After that I want to get some fast fast harddrives/lots of big SATA drives so I can look into RAID, because the purpose of the Bluebox afterall is a media sever.

Which brings me to my next point-eventually the Bluebox will be a webserver to bring media to those with the proper passwords and such anywhere in the world. Thats far in the future though.