I had an old Dell Inspiron 6400 lying around at home and decided to install Linux on it – had been dabbling with Linux for many years – but as it was never the only operating system on the computer – didn’t really get ahead with it. Also the plan was to make a multimedia center that I could control with my mobile. I had been doing this on my mac using Salling Clicker, but had no idea what I would do with the Dell – so, as is usual in such cases – Google came to my help.

The feature-set I had planned includes:

1. Digital Photo Frame – slideshow starts as soon as the computer boots
2. Media Centre (controlled via Bluetooth mobile):
3. Control wi-fi router through Bluetooth mobile
4. E-book server – Serve e-books to the nook over wi-fi
5. Remote access via ssh and vnc
6. Sync music, videos and photos from usb HDD (to-do)
7. Send commands via email – e.g start slideshow, suspend, start/ stop torrents, etc. (to-do)
8. Act as a wireless server for my macbook time machine
9. Display clock while in slideshow mode

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