rmariger wrote: > If I was to run a computer literally all the time, I would consider the > basement thing. But I intend to have it on only in the weekday evening > hours and all-day on weekends that I am home. (I am single and live > alone.)
So you are looking at running it, say 18:00 until 01:00 weekdays and 18:00 Friday until 01:00 Monday morning? While there is some energy savings, I'm not sure that they are all that significant, depending on your electricity rates. Computer systems generally fail during power-up (and warm up). You probably are trading off increased failures about equal to the power savings. You will be running it about 33% of the time, not sure that the power savings are real. Kinda like the hype over hybrid cars. > I would boot once a day. So I want easy access to the on/off > switches to both the sever PC and my linkstation. (I don’t believe I > can turn the linkstation on and off from a network PC.) I don't know much about Linkstations, but you can run SlimServer directly on many of them. Slowly, but still that eliminates a computer. Or, you could replace the Linkstation with a recycled desktop, sell the Linkstation for more than the desktop costs. Running Samba on a linux box is easy and does everything that the Linkstation does. (A lot of consumer NAS are just small Linux machines). > My music is on a 300GB linkstation that is only half full (453 CDs, > flac), and I can connect a USB drive to it when necessary. Soon, you'll have more :-) > Also, with the basement option playing music requires the server > computer be on, a controlling computer be on, the linkstation be on, > the stereo amplifier be on, and the squeezebox be on. I’d lose my > green credentials. No, you don't need a 'controlling computer' you just let it run. And you can power off your amp and squeezebox, to recover some of your greenie points. >> that there is no reason that the slimserver have any user interface. I >> never touch mine. I use a laptop to control through the Web UI. > > Having only one PC currently, I was not aware that you can run the web > interface from a network computer that does not have SS installed. > This is good to know. This is, IMHO, the biggest benefit of the Slim philosophy. The SqueezeBox is dumb, the brains are in the server, and you can control the server with nearly anything. I'm starting to do development on a Blackberry, and while its browser is limited, in theory it could control your SqueezeBox as well. > I’m not looking for a qualitatively different experience. I just need > another PC, and want to get the right one. I’m leaning toward the > laptop option but wish to look more into the Via Epia system. Have you checked out the equivalent of Craigslist for really, really cheap desktops. While they aren't as green while running as a Epia, saving one from the landfill is very green recycling. Pat -- Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html _______________________________________________ unix mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/unix
