[surpher]

Hello All,

Currently I have a fileserver running Ubuntu Server 12.04.02. It is headless, and I am considering just dropping in a videocard to use it for HTPC uses.
Here's what it has:
i5 750 (no onboard video)
Low end asus mobo
8 GBs of low end ram
7 Western Digital Green drives hooked up in soft-raid (mdadm)


It has a nice CPU cooler on it that I can run passive if Im not doing number crunching on the machine.

Currently the machine is pretty quiet and I'd like to keep it that way.

I am thinking that I could use a card like this:

GT610


Are there better options?

What is the best way to upgrade from 12.04 server edition to a direct-to-XBMC version of Ubuntu. Obviously I know apt-get install xbmc. But that won't give me the minimal XBMCbuntu like interface, no?


Thanks!

[Rick P.]

The 610 is fine for what you need. Look around since you can often find them on sale for $20 or so with rebates.

Re the 'upgrade' from Ubuntu server to a direct to XBMC version what are you looking to do? if you no longer need the server you could load OpenElec or something. However, if you just want your server to boot up XBMC by default (assuming you install a window manager on your headless server) you can just log out and log back in as the XBMC user. Alernatively just run it as a separate session - this is how i run it on my server.