Let's try a little experiment to tap the combined brainpower of Gadget Lab readers. I've finally gotten fed up with having all of my digital files spread across half a dozen PCs, Macs, and random hard drives. It seems to me that the solution is to finally build a central file server to hold everything we've got, and then connect all the other machines to that.
We've got a couple of Powerbooks, a couple of XP boxes. There's an Xbox 360 and a PS3 -- it would be cool to be able to stream video through something onto the HDTV. Our net connection is DSL, decent bandwidth, 802.11g.
Here's what I'm thinking. I want to wire the house with Ethernet, so I can actually move files fast, and stream HD video. This won't be that hard, since I've got a basement, and I can run cable there. We'll keep the wireless for surfing, etc. I'll need a switch to get that done.
But I don't know what way to go with the server. Ubuntu? Windows? I'm looking for something that all the machines can connect to easily, read and write to, that isn't hard to run. And like I said, if I could stream music and video files (including Divx and Xvid files), that would be ideal.
What suggestions do you all have on how to set all of this up? Let's brainstorm here, and then I'll document the process after we figure out the best way to proceed. Don't let me down, G-Labbers, I'm counting on you.
