After getting over the excitement of getting a mini laptop for free I've moved on to suping it up and integrating it into services my local network has to offer. Probably the best feature of my local network is the server in the closet hooked up to the cable running Mythbuntu. After reading some entries on EEE forums, which there is a great resource of, I found some simple instructions on how to add a 'Myth' front end to the system using an EEE PC. This is a great feature because you can watch live or recorded TV from anywhere over wifi. Installing the needed packages was pretty basic using the default Xandros operating system with the addition of the Debian package library. The only problem I ran into was having to make my Myth Server MySQL database available to the local network by changing the "bind=127.0.0.1" to my local network address. The bind setting on a Mythbuntu system is in the /etc/mysql/my.cnf file. Before making this change the KDM windows manager would reboot and there was no feedback as to why.
I can now enjoy recorded shows and even live TV anywhere in the house. I can watch my Extreme 4x4 shows without annoying my wife with the hosts loud obnoxious commentating, which I love, but not as much as my wife, read happy wife.
