So up until yesterday I have been using my laptop (with Boxee Media Center installed) connected to my TV via HDMI for watching my movies. This was a pain in the butt if say my mom wanted to watch a movie but I needed my laptop for work (aka play games). So set out to find a way to for my mom to watch her movies an I can still use my laptop. The result a laptop (other laptop) server.
I could have put together a bunch of parts from old broken down systems that I have sitting in the basement to make a cheap tower server that would be loud and take up a bunch of space. But that was just the problem. I don’t have much space for it and my parents would complain about the noise, trust me I have tried. Then there would be the issue of network wires to get to the server.
I remembered that I had a old laptop that nobody would use. In fact it was so old it wouldn’t be the effort to sell. Just clean it up with a new OS and install some software, it was perfect.
Now it is small, it is quiet, it has WiFi and built in battery backup. I can store this thing almost anywhere. Under or behind a couch, under a bed, behind the TV, strapped to the underside of a table behind your current computer. The options go on and on.
My Setup
- Old acer laptop that took 5 minutes to load Windows
- External 320 GB HDD
- xubuntu
- wine
- utorrent (with web gui enabled)
- PS3 media server (because I have a PS3 connected to my TV)
- SSH
I hid mine behind the couch and also decided to put the rest of the network gear there so I can free up some space on my desk.
My hidden network