Diving in head first! Want to make LinuxMCE system and no experience
 

Ok,

I recently was given an old (2008) server from my office. I have done some research and found that if I want to make a complete home controls system that LinuxMCE is a great option to accomplish that goal. Only problem is that I have ZERO linux experience to work from. I downloaded the software and have installed it on the the server (repeatedly at this point) and am still at a loss as to how to get things accomplished.

System as it is currently:

SuperMicro Motherboard
Xeon processor
8GB RAM
6 TB RAID and plenty of cooling fans.
Dual gigabit LAN ports.
Only 32-bit system I think.

Stuff I have added but have not gotten working to date:

Ceton infinitv capture card with cable card on site

500 MB PCI Nvidia graphics card (cant remember model at the moment.)

Looking for PCIe sound card because I have 3 more PCIe slots open and no PCI slots.

To date:

Successful install of Kubuntu and KBE(?) GUI.

No joy on driver installs for Video card (actually crashes Linux MCE during install process due to driver conflict I think). Not sure how to install drivers for TV card either. Starting to feel a little frustrated because I should know how to run command lines (I do remember DOS and UNIX as a distant memory). Guess I have been in Win-hell for too long.

Where to start?

Help?!?

Thanks.

CC

Linux comes with all the drivers it has or needs, generally. If your hardware is not recognized, there probably isn't a driver for it, and it's not going to work. Many TV cards do work fine under Linux. I'm not sure what "video driver" you're trying to install, (proprietary?), but if the video works, why are you trying to install something else? The default should work. If you were more clear about what exactly you're trying to do, you would get more help. You need to know exact models and chipsets of cards to determine if they will work or not.

As above, exact info reqd; try these cmds to determine the HW (as root user)
NB: not all cmds work on all distros, so don't worry if one or two don't work

You might want to take a look at MythTV cast
Think the server would be great as a backbone server, but hardly qualify as something you want to put in the livingroom next to your TV.