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I wrote a while back about how I want to build my own sort of Tivo unit based on MythTV running on a Linux core. I’m pretty sure I will go with an Asus Pundit ‘barebone’ system because the cost v. feature comparision is very good. The case is attractive and doesn’t look too much like a computer. Total cost of my “MythBox” will be somewhere between $600 and $700 depending on things like wireless keyboards/mouse, etc. I really don’t think I’d need a keyboard/mouse, since the remote provided by the tv tuner card should do everything necessary, but it might be nice to use it as a “regular” computer too sometimes.

There are a few cases from companies like Ahanix that are absolutely perfect for usage in a home theatre environment; however, they require an absolutely massive budget… $200 for JUST a metal box is far too much to spend for ‘looks’ in my opinion. It would be an additional $150 for the power supply, the ‘cool’ VFD (like an LCD/LED display on a vcr/dvd player, etc), and a ‘remote’ control. So we’re at $350 and still haven’t reached the same level of functionality as the Asus Pundit because there still needs to be a motherboard of course, plus the Pundit also provides a media reader.

I keep looking for something better than the Pundit and generally don’t succeed, but I stumbled across the Cubit P4 system this morning. Whoa! I always wanted an Apple “Cube” computer, but they discontinued them before I ever had significant cash and that was pre-OSX anyway and, er, prior to OS X, eww. Shuttle started up the ‘cube’ frenzy again with their barebone systems and just about every company is starting to come out with their own version. They’re pretty damned expensive too, but it is understandable to a certain extent because all of the components need to be “micro-sized” to fit into such a tiny box. The biggest concern with ‘cube’ or “SFF” cases is the airflow and cooling… otherwise you’d truly end up with a toaster.

Anyway, back to the Cubit P4 systems. That mirrored chrome is extremely nice, but the price isn’t. . . $962.99 for JUST the barebones — power supply, motherboard, case. Just for the hell of it I created a rather minimal config to see how much it would cost to get everything included (also including the PVR-350 card) and it came up to a very Apple-esque price of $1,960.06. *Gasp* While those ‘toasters’ are extremely attractive that’s a hell of a lot of money for the sake of appearance! If I had that sort of disposable income though I’d definitely go for it.

They also have the Cubit 3 version which is based on a rather interesting ‘new’ CPU from VIA. I really think that the Nehemiah C3 processors are a good thing, especially if they ‘take off’ and are able to establish a decent sized market share with AMD & Intel. The Cubit 3 systems are considerably less expensive than the P4 systems, but they’re still in deep space compared to other less ‘attractive’ solutions. Personally I haven’t a clue as to where one would buy a VIA C3 processor anyway, heh.

The router project, which still doesn’t have a ‘better’ name is more underway than it was. The motherboard arrived today, I let it ‘adjust’ to room temp and broke it out this morning, looks nice, compact, etc… It’s a MSI KM2M Combo-L motherboard with the KM266 Chipset. The main reason for going with this particular one was that A) it wasn’t completely generic and B) it has both DDR & SDR slots for memory. I rather like that option because for its current purposes regular old SDRAM is perfectly acceptable and we have TONS of it even when not considering the 512MB chips I recently took out of the Dali fileserver because of suspected ‘badness’ with them. Clark Connect only needs 64MB of ram and I have easily 256MB to put into it.

I did run into an unexpected ‘problem’ though when testing it out. Apparently one is REQUIRED to use the p4 12 volt auxiliary power connector in addition to the standard motherboard connector for power. None of the ‘old’ power supplies have this special connector and as such the board won’t turn on. I was testing it with the components placed on a anti-static matts on my side desk because the proper case hasn’t arrived yet. I’m truly hoping that the power supply in the Inwin case has that special p4 connector; I searched around the net for a while and couldn’t find any definitive info, but I did stumble across a photo that shows that power supply model number with p4 power cable coming out of it so I feel somewhat at ease. Fedex should bring the case this afternoon anyway.

The other potential problem was that the all of the information says that it supports processors from 1GHz up to 2.8GHz, but I have only an 800MHz to put into it. I finally found some obscure document on the MSI website referencing that it would work with CPUs all the way down to 600MHz so all good there.

The third potential issue was one I didn’t really consider at all. When I stuck the components into my brother Matt’s old system (totally unstable, it powers off randomly, etc) neither the Fujitsu 1.7GB or the Samsung 8.4GB drive would get recognized by the BIOS. I chalked that up to the computer just being a hunk of shit, especially after I tested the Fujitsu in my workstation and it was recognized without issue. Matt’s computer did detect the 40GB drive though. It didn’t dawn on me until this morning why that inconsistency could have been and the reason is that the motherboard in Matt’s old system simply may not support ATA33 drives. This worries me because this new motherboard states that it supports ATA66 through ATA133… no mention of ATA33 at all. The older and subsequently smaller drives are most certainly ATA33 while the 40GB Maxtor drive is ATA100. I’ll be justified in my disappointment if the tiny Fujitsu drive isn’t detected by the BIOS because it’s only ATA33. This isn’t a blocker, but it does mean that I need to use the 40GB Maxtor drive in the router; using such a large drive in something like that is an incredible waste. I’d much rather use the 40GB drive in the fileserver and while I can still use it for the same purposes on the router, it just strikes me as a security d’oh to have SMB running on such a device EVEN IF it is specifically firewalled off from the ‘red’ ethernet adapter. Oh well, in about six or so hours I should be able to figure all this out provided that Fedex actually does deliver the case today like they’re supposed to.

Yesterday morning I watched Happy Together, a Chinese film set in Argentina. The reviews for another film I’d seen recently, Burnt Money, referenced it as a cross between Happy Together and Bonnie & Clyde and indeed it is. Anyway, the general point behind both of these films is a certainly similar tone of how sometimes things just can’t start over the way they were between two people. No matter how much one may love the other there comes a point where it just can’t “start over” again, and that one person makes a conscious decision to end it… with the other usually trying desperately to start it up again.

I could easily see myself on both sides of that situation when I look back over some of the more poignent relationships. It’s like that last night in Pittsburgh before I left when I wanted so badly to just hold Stephen one more time and he wouldn’t allow it. It’s like those times where, similarly, Cole would have nothing to do with me holding him randomly during the night. It’s also like now, where I get these phone calls that seem to have no purpose whatsoever and for one brief moment it’s like he’s there with me and I can feel love for him build again. It’s that moment after I have come to dread, where I realize that he’s not, I realize that I can’t let myself feel that way anymore. . . again.

It would just take him being here and everything would change though; at least that is what I am afraid of. More than ever I just want to let it go because our relationship has so fundamentally changed and that summer where [almost] everything felt right is most definitely over. I broke up with him, even if the general usage is being skewed, and I want distance now after receiving only distance, the ironic twist I suppose.

I’m not good with the care and feeding of relationships, I rarely do much to keep them alive and almost always leave it up to the other person. This is just the way I’ve always been. Idle conversation is generally considered useless, unless there’s a level of familiarity uncommon amongst those I know. What’s the sense in asking someone how their day was when all they’ll say is that it was good or some other term generally used as a conversational block? The intimacy is in the details and at this point there are no details and thus it all becomes fairly worthless to me. I suppose my point is that I need details if I am to care, and I’m generally so out of touch with everyone that I just can’t care anymore. Give me something to think about that I’ll find more interesting than wondering when Fedex will come or wondering why my system fan isn’t making some funny noise now because it was ten minutes ago. If you want to start a conversation realize that it doesn’t end after I say hello in response to your hello. I’ve been asked alot why I’m not online very much anymore, well, that’s the reason… I’m completely sick of these stagnent IM windows holding nothing more than two people saying hello to each other. If you start a conversation with me I expect you to say something, afterall I don’t have anything to say otherwise I would have started the conversation myself! I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea of friends drifting apart and I hate it when one makes a paltry effort to reconnect; at the same time I can be just as guilty of doing that too.

The lingering can sometimes be too painful for all involved. I know what I need to do, I just don’t know quite how to do it yet.

After putting in those special devfs lines for my card reader I thought everything was working fine for mounting the removable media. Reboot after reboot it all worked, now suddenly (WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING!!) it doesn’t work again. What the hell? Gentoo just doesn’t make any fucking sense when it comes to this shit. I really think it is devfs being idiotic, and perhaps I never really used it before, but whatever it seriously pisses me off how something will work then suddenly not work without changing anything.

This morning I got a warning message on my monitor that the system fan was failing. This isn’t particularly shocking because it has become a bit more noisy than usual lately. Given that OEM fans aren’t generally designed to run constantly for 10 months, heh, it wasn’t unexpected from that standpoint either. So I call HP and tell the guy that I need a new fan. He tells me my warranty is expired. This is news to me because it’s been less than a year that I’ve owned the computer. Somehow their system indicates I’ve had it since September of last year, suuuure. Anyway, they would send me a new fan if I fax them my receipt showing I’ve owned it less than a year. Fuck that, too much work to replace a shitty system fan. Since we don’t have any 92mm fans anywhere, just a few 80mm ones, I decide to go ahead and just order it on my own from a relatively local company. Of course since they have flat rate shipping it made sense to go ahead and buy a few other fans and misc stuff while I was at it, so ultimately to replace the fan in this computer it cost me ~$35, haha. Oh well, hopefully it will be here soon. The fan is working, but periodically it gets noisy and sometimes I get that warning message. I think the fan’s rpm sensor is going dead. The gigantic heatsink isn’t even warm to the touch so I don’t think I have any sort of overheating issue to worry about anyway.

Well, yesterday morning approximately at 4am I ordered the case and motherboard for our ‘new’ router. It costs about $113, but I get a free t-shirt out of the deal too, hah. I guess technically the new case wasn’t necessary, and I could have gone for a cheaper one, but if I were to use the old case we have I’d need a new power supply anyway. The new case is pretty snazzy, sort of beige/white (might need to be painted black), but very simple and small, with no visible “computer” like openings — everything is covered up. This is especially good because there’s no need for a floppy or cdrom once it’s setup anyway.

I was concerned that I would have to use the ’spare’ 40GB drive for the router, which is more than overkill, because this crappy mostly non-functional MB I was trying the drives out on didn’t detect the other 1.7GB or 8.4GB drives. I kept thinking that it would be such a waste to have a 40GB drive in something like that and was looking up how I could go about doing a drive-mirror from the 17.2GB drive in the fileserver and using that one instead. Before I got myself into that mess though I figured I ought to test the 1.7GB in another computer with a known working MB. Sure enough the 1.7 shows up just fine in this computer so to hell with that drive cloning idea. I’ll just get a nice 36″ round IDE cable so I can put it in the fileserver.

My ‘office’ is a total disaster zone at the moment. There are drive boxes, parts, everything computer related, all over the place. In a way it doesn’t matter to me, but I hope to get it all cleaned up once everything is stable. I’ll also need to organize all these spare parts in the event they become necessary sometime in the future.

I’m still not 100% sure which router-distro I’m going to use. I have already burned the Clark Connect ISO and I’m mostly certain I’ll go with that, it seems the most “featured” one. That ‘group’ has also announced a plan to move to the Fedora Core of Redhat… I despise that whole idea, but it’s better than having something based on an already deprecated Redhat, which the other option, Smoothwall, is. IPCop, a derivative of Smoothwall, looks so horrible, very lacking of “polish” and that just doesn’t sit well with me. I’d really just prefer to put something like Gentoo on the router box, but I can’t seem to find any web-interfaces for the iptables stuff (outside of router-distros) which would be necessary for it to be accepted by my brother. In a way it’s a better security model to not have any sort of developer tools on the router anyway… in the even that someone would break in they wouldn’t be able to compile their nasty apps easily. The one concern I do have yet is that there is no “toggle” to move our existing router into “switch mode” that I can find. I’m making the assumption that if we simply disable all the dhcp and all that on the router and don’t use the WAN plug that it’ll work out okay. Even if it doesn’t a new switch isn’t that expensive anyway… even though we’d still need 8 ports.