[mjc189]

I am in the planning stage of a HTPC build. I plan on using XBMCBuntu and am group 7. I plan on turning an older pc (I think it is athalon II, but I don't have it in my possession yet) into a HTPC but storage on it will be limited. I also want to turn my desktop running ubuntu into a "NAS"(but I want the desktop functionality to remain)

1) I want be able to rip blu ray movies (prob with makemkv) to it and access it from XBMC
2) save files (doc, pics etc) that can be accesed by a windows 7 laptop
3) turn the desktop into print server

I need a fresh install of Ubuntu, so how would I format the drive ? ext4 ? because I know fat32 doesn't support large files.
But will the win7 laptop see the data on ext4? read and write to it?

It's a 1.5 TB drive would I be better off making 3 partitions ? one for ubuntu OS only , maybe one to actually run win 7 on this machine to dual boot, and a thrid partion formatted in ? for storage of blu rays and other files that can be accessed by all systems in house ?

I'm open to suggestions. I just think using the desktop as the main storage is the best idea for me because it has an i5 cpu and plenty room for more drives.

[mjc189]

Nobody has any suggestions? I realize some questions don't directly relate directly to XBMC but my main concern is formating my storage partition in the desktop. XBMCBuntu will work with ext3 or 4. But I need to be able to access it from win 7.

[furii]

if you're accessing it over the network (via smb/nfs) it doesn't matter. the only time the filesystem would matter is if you physically put it in the windows machine. just go with ext4.

[Prof Yaffle]

Agree - I have ext4 partitions on my NAS and all clients that can read NFS/CIFS or SMB can read it quite happily, since it's the NAS OS that worries about read/write, not the client.

[mjc189]

thanks I thought that was the case just wasn't 100%.
I just found out the computer I will use with XBMCBuntu is an emachine t3638 with a celeron 420 1.6GHZ SINGLE core . It has intel graphics media accelerator 950.
I plan on putting the Asus GT 430 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 card in. What is the slowest/ cheapest core 2 duo I could use to stream 1080p?

Supported CPUs:
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (L2) (65W) N/A 1.80 GHz 2MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 (L2) (65W) N/A 2.00 GHz 2MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 (G0) (65W) N/A 2.6 GHz 2MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (L2) (65W) N/A 1.86 GHz 2MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (L2) (65W) N/A 2.13 GHz 2MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 (B2) (65W) N/A 2.13 GHz 4MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (B2) (65W) N/A 2.40 GHz 4MB N/A
LGA775 Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (B2) (65W) N/A 2.66 GHz 4MB N/A

I assume I will have to upgrade the 300w stock power supply also? or will the 300w hold up as long as I don't have a bunch of drives?

[teeedubb]

Your current CPU is fine for 1080p, as the nvidia graphics cards will do all the heavy work via vdpau. Personally I'd see how the celerin goes before upgrading as a single core atom can play 1080p fine with a nvidia gpu.

[mjc189]

Awesome! I'll have to order a card and keep my fingers crossed.thanks for the info

[mjc189]

Got my gt 430 in today and besides the cpu maxing out at 100% at idle (which I created a thread for and will try to upgrade my drivers) my tv won't see my computer with hdmi. I hooked a dvi cable up to the new card on a different monitor and it worked fine. I tried to hook my win7 laptop up via hdmi to my tv and this didn't work either. Will using a new version of hdmi with an old tv not work ? my tv is a polaroid from 07. I never tried using the HDMI ports, but googling I saw that things like to use a PS3 the tv has to have HDCP? Is my problem similar?

[mjc189]

My friend tried the HDMI cable on his tv and it worked. The DVI port on the new card worked. My currently is set to 720p with VGA. Is there something i'm missing? all my other ports on the tv work, I doubt the hdmi ports are bad. When I first turn on my computer the screen goes black and says 1p then goes to no signal. It has to be some setting right? This is super frustrating, I've been googling but no answer. Any advice is welcome and appreciated.