Home Server Project - Part 1

Explains the history behind and first steps of my home server project.

I currently live in a house with three other guys (see bachelor pad). Between us we have 3 desktops, 3 laptops, 3 XBOX 360s, and 3 iPhones. The desktops and laptops are running ether XP or Vista. The first year in the house saw the addition of network connections to all of the bedrooms and the living room, serviced by a cable modem, wireless and wired routers, and an 8-port hub. The living room has one of the XBOXes, a projector, digital cable box, and a Pioneer receiver.

Over my Christmas vacation, instead of relaxing, I decided to start yet another project. I wanted to better integrate the home network and I also wanted to get my feet wet with home automation. So the idea was to setup some network shares and also to make a remote interface for the living room that can be used from the iPhone (or any web browser). After some research I settled on using Ubuntu Server with Samba for the shared drives (it was around this point I also decided to work on implementing Roaming Profiles), lirc and the IguanaWorks USB IR Transceiver for replacing all the remotes in the living room, and uShare to share media with the XBOX 360s. Of course the web interface for the living room remotes will be backed by PHP and jQuery.

The next step was to find some hardware to run all of this. My first stop was Newegg followed by a stop at IguanaWorks.

Since I ordered all of the components, I have been waiting on the pieces to arrive. I also ordered a 4Gb flash drive from Newegg, because I couldn't find mine and I can use it to install the operating system (instead of getting an SATA or USB CD drive). While waiting I have just been reading up on all of the documentation to prepare myself for the installation process. Stay tuned for the next part in the series.