Building a HTPC under Rs. 50000

Its winter everywhere (except in southern hemisphere). Most of the people are currently curled up in their beds watching movies & TV shows. There's tonne of legal and illegal content out on the web right now. But, I'm not going to get into legal battle right now. That's for you guys to decide. Instead, I'm writing a small guide to help you guys with all your HTPC needs. So, here we go.

Microprocessor :-

This is one of the most important things for a HTPC. Now there are two things that we need to look upon :-

• Processor with great processing power.
• Less TDP & heat footprint.

The first thing that came into my mind when I was going to build a HTPC computer was AMD Athlon II X2 250 processor. Its a great processor, 65 W TDP, built on 45 nm architecture & couple it with a motherboard that has ATI 4200 onboard graphics and you've got a killer HTPC. This will also bring the cost down. But, this will work only great in Windows where one can utilize the ability of ATI 4200 to decode HD graphics. Take Linux into consideration and all hell breaks loose. I am a great supporter of FOSS idealogy. So, I had to choose the components which worked flawlessly under Linux. ATI has huge headaches with Linux. Only Ubuntu has good support for these. Other distros such as Arch Linux, Fedora etc are not supported by the ATI's drivers.

This is where Intel comes to our rescue. The new IntelH55 chipset runs flawlessly under Linux. XBMC also supports it, which I intend to use. Its very unfortunate that NVIDIA is leaving the chipset business other wise I would've gladly included a NVIDIA motherboard in the configuration. The processor that I chose is Intel Core i3 530. It is an awesome processor. I'm not going to review it right now but you can check out this excellent review by AnandTech. This processor costs Rs. 5500

Motherboard :-

For motherboard, I went with the MicroATX form factor. The motherboard that I stumbled upon after 30 minutes of research is Biostar H55-HD. This motherboard has a built in HDMI, DVI & VGA port. So you can use which ever you want. Moreover, It also has overclocking ability so you can overclock your awesome Intel Core i3 530 processor to all the way to 4 GHz (with a good PSU offcourse). Here's the link. The cost of the motherboard is around Rs. 3400

Memory :-

The prices of RAM are dirt cheap now. DDR3 is going around Rs. 2700 for 4 GB. I chose Corsair as it has 10 years warranty and can also be overclocked if the need arises. The price of this 4 GB kit is Rs. 2800.

Hard Disk Drive & Optical drive.:-

Hard drive is a very essential part of a computer. It becomes more important when you consider HTPC. I chose Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB HDD. It has 64 MB of cache, uses only 6 W of power when running & comes with a 3 year warranty. Here's the link. The price is Rs. 2900.

For your optical drive needs, stick to a standard SATA drive from Sony or Samsung. Blu-Ray movies are currently expensive in India now. A Hollywood movie is around Rs. 1700 whereas a Hindi movie is around Rs. 700. Price for DVD drive :- Rs. 1100.

Input Devices :-

As we are building a HTPC, it is ultra-important that we stick to a wireless combination of keyboard and mouse. The Logitech CL MK320 do the job well & are also priced superbly. You can get this combo kit for Rs. 1500. Also, they have a 3 year warranty.

Monitor :-

Obviously, as we are building a HTPC, we need a monitor that supports full HD resolution. The inclusion of all 3 standards of input will be an added bonus. So, I went for BenQ G2420 HD. This is a superb monitor. Its 24" diagonally, 1920x1080 resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio and has HDMI, DVI & VGA inputs. Moreover it is superbly priced at Rs. 11600.

Cabinet :-

This is also one of the most important parts of HTPC. If you guys are going to stick to dedicated graphics card, then I suggest you go for a mid-tower cabinet. But, I went ahead and selected the awesome Cooler Master Elite 100. This cabinet supports both MicroATX & mini-ITX form factor motherboards. It has a bundeled 150 watt SMPS which should be more than enough for our configuration. Check it out.

Speakers :-

For an HTPC, we definitely need 5.1 surround sound speakers. There are large variety of speakers available in the market this time. Some are very highly priced. So I striked the balance between cost and performance and went for Logitech Z-506 speakers. They are "bloody awesome". They have a power output of 75 W RMS which is more than sufficient for a living room. They support multiple inputs be it PC, Xbox 360, PS3 or DVD player and even audio input from your AV cable. Go for these ones. They are around Rs. 6500.

So this is our final configuration :-

1. Intel Core i3 530
2. Biostar H55-HD
3. Corsair 4 GB DDR3
4. WD Caviar Green 1 TB HDD
5. Sony SATA DVD RW
6. Logitech CL MK320 combo kit
7. BenQ G2420 HD monitor.
8. Cooler Master Elite 100 cabinet.
9. Logitech Z-506 5.1 speakers.

The total cost of this setup is Rs. 38,300.

Software :-

I suppose you guys already have Windows 7 Home Premium license. If not either get one or like me, install Linux on it. You can install any GNU/Linux distro. Some of my recommendations are :-

1. Ubuntu 10.10.
2. Fedora 14.
3. Linux Mint.
4. Opensuse 11.3.

They all support the hardware out of the box. Choose 32-bit if your RAM is less than 4 GB else go for 64-bit. If you're new to GNU/Linux then stick to either Ubuntu or Linux Mint. If you have prior knowledge of GNU/Linux then go for Fedora 14 or Opensuse 11.3. I chose to install Arch Linux (64-bit).

Also, the best media center software for this setup would undoubtedly be XBMC. This is a superb piece of software which can connect to internet and get all the metadata of your movies, TV shows & music.

Here's the screenshot of the movie section :-

And, this is the screenshot of the TV show's section :-

So , try and build this HTPC & please tell me about your experiences. Any suggestions and comments are welcome.

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Arch Linux Review

Of lately, I’ve grown tired of re-installing my beloved Fedora again and again after 6 months. Although, I loved each and every feature of Fedora, but reinstalling it again after 6 months was a pain. I know it can be upgraded directly to the new version, but this time I wanted something which I could upgrade even if I booted my GNU/Linux after 1 year. I wanted to get the Fedora’s cutting edge new packages in the next distro that I was going to install on my system. Ubuntu is awesome, but it has dated packages when compared to Fedora.

Initially, I was even thinking about getting FreeBSD on my system. But re-learning the whole OS from the scratch is cumbersome. Maybe some day I’ll install FreeBSD some day on my system. So, time to decide the new distro. I went over to my trusty Distrowatch site and found that Arch Linux was on #8. A quick search over few forums confirmed that Arch Linux also offers latest packages. So, time to install Arch Linux on my system. First, here’s the configuration :-

• 
  
  AMD Athlon II X4 640 @ 3.0 GHz


• 
  
  Biostar TA 790 GX BE


• 
  
  4 GB DDR2 @ 800 MHz


• 
  
  1 TB SATA II HDD


• 
  
  Onboard Realtek sound card


• 
  
  Palit GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 graphics card with 896 MB of GDDR3 memory


• 
  
  AOC F22 21.5” full HD LCD with 1080p resolution

The first thing that I had to make sure was that the sound card and the graphic card of my system work with Arch Linux. A quick search over the Arch wiki and the Arch forum confirmed that both of these devices work.Now, as I had 4 GB RAM, I had to switch to 64-bit version. 64-version also gives me faster performance in audio and video encoding. I went to the download section and downloaded the x86-64 version of the Core Image which is essential for offline installation. This is only 350 MB download which contains the Linux kernel and other GNU utilities.Warning :- If you’re new to GNU/Linux and have a fear of command line, please don’t attempt to install Arch Linux on your system.

Installation

The installation of Arch Linux requires pretty good control over the command line. For anyone who is willing to install Arch Linux on his/her system, I would recommend that one should take the print-outs of the Arch Linux Beginner’s guide.  Another computer or a laptop would also help. Trust me, YOU NEED TO TAKE THOSE PRINT OUTS. If you don’t, you’ll regret it later.

So, I transferred the ISO image to my USB pen drive using the following command :-

dd if=image.iso of=/dev/sd[x]

Replace image.iso with the image name and x with the drive letter of the USB drive.This step makes the USB drive bootable. You can also burn the ISO image to a CD and proceed with installation from there.Now, for the rest of the installation you should refer to the print outs that you’ve taken.

The Desktop

My desktop environment of choice is GNOME. I absolutely love it. Moreover, I also installed Compiz Fusion with Emerald themes to make it look more nice. Few recommended application for the GNOME user are :-

• 
  
  Listen – Audio Player. Better than Banshee, eats less resources and doesn't requires Mono.


• 
  
  Mplayer – Video Player. Awesome if you’ve installed NVIDIA’s proprietary drivers. It will accelerate the HD content with the VDPAU library. Just make sure you check it in the player’s option.


• 
  
  LibreOffice – Free Office Suite. Oracle sucks!!


• 
  
  Chromium – Webkit based browser used by Google.


• 
  
  Firefox – Awesome Open Source browser.


• 
  
  Opera – It rules!! Best damn browser.


• 
  
  Thunderbird – Awesome email client.


• 
  
  XBMC – For your media enter needs.


• 
  
  Deluge – BitTorrent Client. Better than Transmission because it supports queuing.

Final Verdict

Trust me, if you’ll install Arch Linux, you’ll learn a lot. You’ll learn almost everything about the operating systems. There are no unnecessary modules that are loaded on the boot time thus slowing down your system. Everything that your system requires can be configured in the /etc/rc.conf file. It used only 1.1 GB RAM with VirtualBox running Windows 7, Firefox, Chromium, GNOME, Compiz-Fusion, Listen, Pidgin & OpenOffice running.



Rating – 9.5/10

Opera 10.60 Review

Browser!! The most important piece of software on your computer. It is your window to the world of the Internet. There are many browsers in the world. For e.g. :-

• Mozilla Firefox.


• Internet Explorer.


• Safari.


• Google Chrome


• Opera.

But, there is one which stands out among them. Its called Opera. It is currently, the fastest browser in the world.

Opera is the pioneer in the browser arena. It was the first browser to introduce tabbed browsing, the first one to implement mouse gestures, the first one to have a built-in torrent client & the only one which has a built in e-mail client. So, lets take a look at Opera.

Tab Management :-

Tabbed browsing was the feature that was first implemented by Opera. Now, Opera 10.60 takes it to a whole new level. Check out the screenshot.



Tabs are beautifully managed in Opera 10.60. Right click on the tab-bar & you can select the position of the tabs on any corner of your screen.

Speed Dial:-

Speed dial is another mind-blowing feature that was implemented by Opera. This feature allows you to assign up to 25 websites on the speed-dial screen. Speed-dial can also be assigned as the homepage but it automatically opens when you open a new tab or a blank window. Shortcuts for the first 9 speed dials are assigned as Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 so that you can easily access the tabs. Here’s the amazing screenshot of my desktop :-

Mail Client :-

Opera has a built-in email client too. It supports POP3 & IMAP mail. If you have your mail account on GMail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail or AOL then it automatically downloads the required settings for the mail. You only have to select weather you want POP3 or IMAP. If you’ve your mail on another mail provider you can also manually assign the settings.  Its very helpful to surf the web in one tab and check your mail in another. Check out the screenshot :-

Misc features :-

• In built torrent client.


• Download manager.


• Awesome Javascript engine (Carakan).


• Content Blocking.


• Superb javascript handling.

Performance :-

What can I say, check out the marvellous Presto engine in its full glory :-



According to the above benchmark, it demolishes every browser in the market today.

Pros :- Superb tab management, awesome javascript engine, built-in email client.

Cons :- Very less plugins.

Rating :- 5/5.

Download link :- www.opera.com

The Cousin (s) experiment

Early this year, my two cousins got new computers. One of them got a laptop & other one went for a desktop. One of my cousin, who got a laptop, is a second year computer science engineering student. The other one, has just completed his high-school.

The laptop was taken without my advice and unsurprisingly it sucked. But still, it makes a good general purpose laptop. The configuration of the Dell laptop is :-

Processor	Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200
RAM	2 GB DDR2 @ 667 MHz
HDD	250 GB 5400 RPM
Screen Size	14.1” 1280x720 resolution
Graphics	Integrated Intel GMA
Price	Rs. 35000

Considering the price this laptop is not bad, but still, it is not good either. It was shipped with FreeDOS. My cousin, who has no knowledge about any operating system came to me and asked me to install an operating system on it.

Lets come to my second cousin, who just cleared his high-school. His dad called me and asked me to build a nice PC under Rs.25k. I was initially going for AMD Athlon II X2 250 & AMD 785G chipset. But the demand was so much high of this platform that we were told to wait for 7 days. So, I decided to go with the following configuration which was available on the spot:-

Processor	Intel Pentium Dual Core E5400 @ 2.7 GHz
Motherboard	Asus G31
RAM	2 GB DDR2 @ 800 MHz Kingston
HDD	Western Digital Blue 500 GB SATA II
DVD Writer	Sony DRU 870 S
LCD	AOC F19 18.5” 1366x768 resolution
Cabinet & PSU	Zebronics Bijli with the default PSU.
Graphics card	Integrated

I decided to install Fedora 12 on both of the systems. There were many advantages of doing so, mainly :-

• FOSS products.


• No headaches about viruses, spywares, adwares etc.


• Built in superb OpenOffice.Org suite.


• Low resource usage.


• No need of drivers (except for the Broadcom wireless in laptop).


• Integrated IDE & development tools.


• No need of defragmentation or disk cleanup.


• Delta RPMs, which reduce the size of updates upto 80% (95% in some cases).

The installation was a breeze. I chose ext4 as the default filesystem on both computers. I created the following partitioning scheme on the both systems :-

• / – was allocated about 25 GB on both machines.


• /home – around 30 GB on the laptop & 40 GB on the desktop.


• /movies – for storing movies. ext4 was again chosen.


• /music – for storing music, again ext4.


• /data – for storing miscellaneous data.

The only thing which I had to do was to grant permission to them to mount the filesystems and to install the updates. That’s it nothing else.

The installation went super smooth. Everything was detected out-of-the-box. I had to install few multimedia packages like gstreamer-plugins-bad  & ugly along with other multimedia features. They both were familiar with VLC Player though, so I installed that too. Oh, and I chose GNOME as the default user environment. The webcam was detected by Fedora & was working flawlessly via cheese. Brasero was doing a nice jobs in burning the data discs, music was perfectly being managed by Rhythmbox & Banshee.

Its been about 5 & a half months. I’ve never, ever done any kind of repair on those two computers. Every gadget in their home is working flawlessly with Fedora 12. More over, I even visited my cousin's college to instruct his teacher & his seniors on Fedora 12.

I just want to say that, if you have a cousin or a relative who is new to computers, then try installing any flavour of GNU/Linux or PC-BSD. You’ll be amazed how well people adopt it. There are people who still believe that you’ve to learn commands to work on a GNU/Linux computer. Both of my cousins can’t even copy files via command line, yet they are working on their systems since last 5 months without my supervision.