If its mainly for watching tv, you would need to lookup MythTV or the other options. I had a quick at the comparison chart here http://www.deviceguru.com/comparing-10-free-media-center-apps/ (pdf at the end of the post) and Boxee doesnt support tv tuner cards.

On the slow response of Boxee, you can consider disabling vsync.

@Goineasy9: Boxee is Open Source (source code available for download after registration at the website)

You can find out the device node this modem is connected to

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*

Usually this is /dev/ttyUSB*. There will be two of them. In my case, I have the following for a Huawei E220 hsdpa usb modem

/dev/ttyUSB0
/dev/ttyUSB1

In your case it could be different ttyUSB1, ttyUSB2 etc., (depends on number of devices attached and/or when it was attached)

and if you have wvdial on the CD, you can create the file ~/.wvdialrc

[Dialer Defaults]

Phone = *99#

Username = username

Password = password

Stupid Mode = 1

Dial Command = ATDT





[Dialer huawei]

Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0

Baud = 460800

Init2 = ATZ

Init3 = ATE0V1&D2&C1S0=0+IFC=2,2

ISDN = 0

Modem Type = Analog Modem

Init5 =AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","your.apn"

change your.apn to your APN and use

wvdial huawei

to connect. You don't need to mount the modem.

But wait! It could be a lot simpler if you have a recent version of networkmanager included. The KDE/GNOME networkmanager applet detects the modem and it would just be a matter of providing the phone number *99#, the APN and a username and password. You could provide internet/internet or anything else for the username/password if you don't have one.

And.. this did work for me - I was using a ubuntu live dvd first time and then I guess it was openSUSE 11.1 KDE4 live.

Haven't tried Slax in a while!

Well. I was in a hurry and didn't have much choices available at the place I looked for. Went ahead and purchased a http://www.consumer.philips.com/c/webcams-headsets/shm7410_00/prd/sa/ - not USB but a test recording using gnome-sound-recorder was of really good quality!

Now, on to the task of getting Pidgin/Empathy to work...no luck so far.

Have asked the webteam. Will post if I get some information.
If its not possible to use Bilbo, for my future blog postings, I am considering posting snippets here and the full article at my wordpress blog.
I really had a terrible experience with my last blog post here. I prepared the post in HTML and thought pasting the code and uploading the images/fixing URLs would be sufficient. Somehow, uploading images always inserts it at the top of the post and I need to delete it everytime!

If you manage to boot iso from lilo, I would recommend you try openSUSE-LXDE - live and can be installed if needed. I looked at it recently and is really nice.
The openSUSE wiki http://en.opensuse.org/Installation_without_CD has some useful information.

I haven't tried Mythbuntu, but isn't it available as a Live DVD that you can probably test?

As far as Boxee, you are at luck if you use Ubuntu as there are pacakages available to install using synaptic.
Else, you would need to install it from source and be prepared to get all dependencies installed!

Here is my experience on compiling a slightly older version under OpenSUSE 11

But its really worth it. Once installed, it had worked well for me. The only factor is then how good the Internet connection is - if watching videos from the web (that's its major function anyway) but one could also watch local dvds etc.,

XBMC is another choice....

do you have the drivers installed? I had an MP540 and OpenSUSE wouldn't find it. Had to install the drivers from their website. Luckily, they provide drivers in rpm and deb for MP540.

a quick search turned this page http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010395.asp

Now that I got a laptop with integrated webcam, and Pidgin 2.6.2(video/voice support), would like to give video/voice chat a try.

It would be interesting to hear about your experiences on its video/voice chat capabilities on other networks (Gtalk, Yahoo, Skype etc.,)

Now that Pidgin has support for video/voice chat, I would like to give it a go. Most of my friends would be using gtalk or skype. My old headset is about to die and am thinking of buying a new one and have a feeling that USB headsets might offer better audio quality than the 3.5mm jack ones. Does anybody have a recommendation?

I'm in Ireland - this generally means that if you want anything out of the ordinary you'd search UK vendors.

I'd been through the same......

TuxMobil is worth a look for Linux on Laptops and other devices..
http://tuxmobil.org/laptop_manufacturer.html
http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html

The starred manufacturers in the second link above sell Laptops with Linux according to the site..

Other places to check would be
www.pcsystems.ie
www.expansys.ie
www.pixmania.ie

There are others like dabs, elara etc.,

I purchased a Toshiba satellite pro recently for under 600 (ex VAT) but that was with XP..
Would be nice if somebody offered PCs, Notebooks with something like Freedos, so we could choose what to install and avoid OS costs :)

On your Ubuntu installation, why not check out Wubi/. Other possibility would be to just install VirtualBox. That way you can check out if most of your hardware is recognized..

Hope this helps!