Social Feed

OMG...

I am sick of stupid windows.
My home theater pc is toast. It's as messed up as messed up can be.

It has been rebooting with BSDO's over and over for a few weeks, becoming ever more frequent. From a few a day to a few and hour to every few minutes to now, it just boots straight into a BSDO.

I'm done with it. Period.
Windows? Do. Not. Want.

What I want to do now is convert that pc into a Linux pc.
I already use Ubuntu Linux on my other home pc and it works great. It's very, very reliable and I never have any trouble at all with it. It's been running for MONTHS.

I know how to install Ubuntu Linux. That's easy.

My question is, once done, HOW can I then use that pc as a home theater pc like I was before?

What it has is a 2core pentium chip, 4gb of memory, an nvidia 9500gt, several hard discs (I know Linux can read them, I've done that before) and most of all, a satellite tuner card and a TV tuner card.

The satellite tuner card is a Happage WinTV Nova-S-plus
and the TV card is also a Happage Wintv HVR-1250 tv tuner

I have the remote controls for them both, actually the remotes for both are identical. They have little eyes that plug into them so they can see the remote control.

When windows WAS working I could change channels between satellite and over that air TV smoothly from on to another, no problems, it was seamless. One remote, one program, like it was all one big happy family.

HOW can I use the satellite AND TV tuner in Ubuntu Linux.
And this is very important, how can it use the factory remote control senders that came with the tuner cards?

I also would like to be able to have it play back the videos I have stored from past recordings and be able to use the remote control to do that. The pc is in one room and cables run through the wall to the tv in the other room.
There is a little pyramid that I point the remote at and there is another one by the pc so it relays the remote to the pc through the wall.

I can not and will not put a keyboard and or a mouse in my bedroom. Not. Happening.

The remote control is crucial.

I want to stick with Ubuntu Linux because I'm using it on my internet pc and I'm mostly used to it.

Windows however, is NOT an option. I refuse to mess with it any further. I'm sick of it. Period. Done. Over. Bye bye.

Oh, and the other thing that may be a problem, the TV is a 32" 720 flat screen but there is also a square pc screen in the other room that I frequently watch tv on, it's one of the old, big, clunky kind of displays. On the windows it was a problem because they are at two different screen sizes and one is square, one is wide screen.
so it distorted images badly. That was very annoying.

It was after the ex came by and messed with it all for a week that I began having problems with the distorted screens. It would drive me crazy.

I do not know what he did to it all but after he left it was all different..

It ran well for a few months but just recently it started acting bad and just got worse and worse to the point that it's now 100% unusable.

So, windows out, Linux in..

I can get the Linux installed. But what do I do after that???

Thank you!!