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