Just bought my first house, now how should I linux it?

[savantelite]

Yes my first house will be in a residential area built in the 70s. Internet will be installed first along with telephone service. Yes I know I could just use a cell phone but I have asterisk possibilties

So I am looking for energy saving, home automation, and along with adaptable Internet comforts.

I am debating x11 appliances throughout the house such as lights, outlets, and other common conveniences:)

For the kitchen I would like an atom based computer with a touch screen. I like the idea of useing my knuckles to interface so I don't muck up a keyboard and mouse with the cooking stained fingers.

Asterisk...
garage door open from my phone(x11)
power on or off any computer in the house (energy saving)
calendar alarms, phone rings and notifies me what I am missing
call me if fire hazard appliance is left on (x11)

Though I maybe getting ahead of myself, what advice do you have for my first house? I am hoping for some quality crowd sourcing here to make my first one of the best.

Thanks for any and all your help
:guitar:

[dragos240]

X11, is not Linux. X11 is just a window system, so you can run things like firefox, or totem. You could do all that with cli. But I would not recommend it. It would cost more to run extra things to do simple tasks.

[savantelite]

X11 is a window manager, my bad:(

X10 is what I meant:)

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialX10SmartHomeNetworking.html

You can use x10 to control many things in your home.

[dragos240]

X11 is a window manager, my bad:(

X10 is what I meant:)

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialX10SmartHomeNetworking.html

You can use x10 to control many things in your home.

Oh I see. But X11 is not a window manager either. It's a window system. One of the most widely used. Most likely, you use it.

[John.Michael.Kane]

Yes my first house will be in a residential area built in the 70s. Internet will be installed first along with telephone service. Yes I know I could just use a cell phone but I have asterisk possibilties

So I am looking for energy saving, home automation, and along with adaptable Internet comforts.

I am debating x11 appliances throughout the house such as lights, outlets, and other common conveniences:)

For the kitchen I would like an atom based computer with a touch screen. I like the idea of useing my knuckles to interface so I don't muck up a keyboard and mouse with the cooking stained fingers.

Asterisk...
garage door open from my phone(x11)
power on or off any computer in the house (energy saving)
calendar alarms, phone rings and notifies me what I am missing
call me if fire hazard appliance is left on (x11)

Though I maybe getting ahead of myself, what advice do you have for my first house? I am hoping for some quality crowd sourcing here to make my first one of the best.

Thanks for any and all your help
:guitar:

This should get you started.
Linux Home Automation (http://www.linuxha.com/other/intro_ha.html)

[RiceMonster]

Oh I see. But X11 is not a window manager either. It's a window system. One of the most widely used. Most likely, you use it.

You know what s/he meant.

[dragos240]

You know what s/he meant.

Yes. That's true.

[sydbat]

Read through this thread - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1224543

Maheriano has been working on a similar project for awhile.

[HappinessNow]

You could OpenSource your house and let me come in and build an addition off the side to live in. :P

[epsolon77]

I would go with a MythTV server to integrate all your media and TV's. Then hook up an LTSP server for all your PC's so your desktop roams. I am unsure how easily that would integrate the touch screen, but I am pretty sure it's not any harder than getting the touch screen to work in the first place.

I like the idea's on the house automation, and I know that there is some version of MythTV installer that includes an asterisk server with it, along with a good number of features for home automation built in. This should make your life easier. I am actually in process of doing much the same thing, however I haven't even finished unpacking all my junk and it's been since april, so I'll be working on it as soon as my office is clean and functioning. Keep us updated on your decisions and progress. I will check in as often as I remember to.


EDIT: I'm sorry, it's not Myth TV, it's LinuxMCE that I was testing out. http://www.linuxmce.com/

It's full featured and really handy. My experience was that it wasn't perfect, it used KDE instead of Gnome (personal preference issue, not technical) and I had difficulty getting the auto rip feature to work when you insert a dvd. I tracked it to a missing Codec, but was still very Noob at linux and had to abandon the test because the hardware was required elsewhere.

[calrogman]

You know what s/he meant.

But s/he didn't.

[LowSky]

Here what I would love to do to my house one day

Home speaker system with each room having ability for music playback or in house communication.
Central lighting/heating/cooling control from remote PC or cell phone.
LCD panels in each room that can control all aspects of that room, also include voicemail/text system so that messages can be left according to person or group.

Wow I think I am getting over my head a bit... Time to researce, not sure if even half of this is possible or cheap...

[epsolon77]

Here what I would love to do to my house one day

Home speaker system with each room having ability for music playback or in house communication.
Central lighting/heating/cooling control from remote PC or cell phone.
LCD panels in each room that can control all aspects of that room, also include voicemail/text system so that messages can be left according to person or group.

Wow I think I am getting over my head a bit... Time to researce, not sure if even half of this is possible or cheap...

The LinuxMCE touts that it can do all that and more. One of the reasons I was looking into it and am so excited about it's potential. In addition to the touch screen in every room, you can use a bluetooth enabled phone, like say your iPhone, as you roaming control panel. It would only work the room your in! And your media would follow you as you walk through the house. It makes me salivate just to think about all that!

[JT9161]

Wire it with ethernet

[Exodist]

First thing I would do is put up No-M$ signs..

[ssam]

for really low power machines look at via epia, beagle board or sheeva plug.

use wake-on-lan to turn machines on when you need them.

[MoebusNet]

Wire it with ethernet

+1

To be more specific, in-wall wired Gigabit Ethernet in _every_ room of the house. Wire is cheap and will remain functional long enough to pay off the mortgage. All the rest of the hardware just plugs in and is replaceable as it becomes obsolete.

This will give you the freedom to Linux any way you want.

[andras artois]

Skype for phonecalls if it can be done in Ubuntu.

[Jesus_Valdez]

Big giant Tux on roof.

[Mateo]

i've thought about doing a kitchen touchscreen recipe application but it just didn't make sense financially. getting a small computer for cheap is easy, but getting a touchscreen monitor was just way too much.

[zolookas]

Check out Linux MCE demo video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2176025602905109829#

[nothingspecial]

Squeezecenter (http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/support/download-squeezecenter.html)

Free and open source music server software.

Of course you have to buy the hardware. A squeezebox in the kitchen, living room, conservatory and bedroom. That`s my setup.

Actually, you don`t have to buy the hardware, with squeezeslave (http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezeSlave) you can stream the music to another computer. :D

But then squeezeboxes are cheaper than computers.........


.......on the other hand, you can`t encode video with a squeezebox?????

[capnthommo]

hi there
you could always just remove all the windows
:D fnar fnar
sorry, that was not helpful was it, but i just couldn't resist.
seriously, hope it goes well for you and again sorry for the flippancy
capn thommo

[epsolon77]

hi there
you could always just remove all the windows
:D fnar fnar
sorry, that was not helpful was it, but i just couldn't resist.
seriously, hope it goes well for you and again sorry for the flippancy
capn thommo

I have to say, I am not sure I would want my source quite that open :). While I embrace open source technology, I am not so sure I want my neighbors to be able to embrace me. Great comment. :lolflag:

[Sidewinder1]

I don't know about open source compatibility, perhaps since anything coming into your home should be tcp/ip, but no home automation planning should exclude:
http://www.homeauto.com/main.asp
They've been around since 1985 and the capabilities of their systems are almost unlimited. I have one. If you're willing to spend the $ you can do almost anything.
HTH,
Side