The rest of my parts should be here soon, so what all do I need to do when they arrive…
- Install the new parts into the new case (N).
- Install any drivers I might need for the new hardware onto my current XP box (E).
- Run Sysprep on E to prepare it for the hardware change, as I really don’t want to have to reinstall a ton of stuff.
- Move the hard drive and sound card from E to N.
- Swap the DVD drive in E with a new one and put the old one in N. This is just for aesthetics so that the colours all match again — right now I’ve got a drive with a black faceplate in a beige case.
- Rearrange the KVM connections so that N is on the LCD’s DVI port, and E and the Xbox 360 are sharing the VGA port.
- Make sure the new system works properly, install any new drivers needed or repair any problems caused by the Sysprep stage, etc.
That takes care of the new system, but there’s still the old ones…
- Install the three new drives (two PATA, one SATA) into E.
- Boot from a Linux rescue disk and set up swap partitions and a RAID-1 array on the PATA drives and a single large partition on the SATA drive.
- Install Kubuntu onto the RAID-1 set and get it set up properly, making sure that the TV-out works.
- Copy all of my data from my current Linux server and MythTV box (D) to E.
- Shut them both down and move the TV tuner and sound cards from D to E, and remove the /dev/hdb drive from D since it’s been acting flaky.
- Get the tuner card and MythTV working on E, including the new remote that’s supposed to come with the new motherboard.
- Set up all the other services that D was taking care of on E now.
- Move D and the CRT monitor out of the desk area entirely.
Plus recabling of the network and audio connections as needed. That should keep me busy for a while.
I’ll probably throw Win98 on D and keep it around as a ‘retro’ gaming box for the handful of games that don’t run properly on modern systems. If I can find the room for it…