I’ve been trying some various Torrent clients on the headless server.
TorrentFlux is one I used a while ago and is pretty decent, easy install but lacks a lot of configuration and attempting to schedule the downloads is an utter swine. It also doesn’t appear to be particularly active at the moment - the forum was down when I tried to access it, I had to post on the blog to get them to fix it.
TorrentFlux B4RT seems to be where all the TF users have gone. It’s still in beta so the documentation leaves a LOT to be desired and the install is a lengthy pain in the arse. But it’s all up and running at the moment, it’s got a fair few improvements over vanilla TorrentFlux (including automatic RSS downloading) but still has some of the same limitations as TF for scheduling download periods (though you dont have to do quite as much hacking it still doesn’t respect the queuing system on resume - so if you had 20 torrents queued they will all start when the timer goes off).
Azureus - I plan to have a go at getting this to run headless (it has a very fancy looking web interface) but it is written in Java so will probably be a fair bit more memory hungry than the other two above… Still, if it’s scheduling works properly it could be the way forward.
Clutch is the other client I’m intending to have a go with, again it’s light weight but is just the basics, no RSS downloading or fancy things like that.
Workshed MiniITX
First things first you need apache2 and PHP.
Annoyingly when you first try “apt-get install apache2″ Debian will ask you for the CD! Having already removed the CD-ROM this was a potential issue 
All you need to do is remove the CD from the source list, open the list in an editor using “nano /etc/apt/sources.list” and comment out the line with the CD on.
Now apache can be installed from the web sources. When done going to http://server-ip should show you a working apache page.
Install PHP5 and PHP apache support using the following command “apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-curl php5-gd“. When done restart apache “/etc/init.d/apache2 restart“.
I used bits from this guide and this guide to install SVN and WebSVN. Also if, like me, you need to import an existing repository follow this guide.
Workshed MiniITX
Some handy links on setting up Samba here and here
Workshed MiniITX
Having got the board up and running I had a few problems with the Debian net install. After the first splash screen appeared the installer must have been out of the range of the monitor as all I got was a messy splodge on the screen. Four episodes of House and a meal later I checked the installer options and found typing “installgui” instead of just hitting enter should bring up a fancier GUI than the default one. Worked fine!
Once installed I wanted to take the machine off some of it’s life support so I installed ssh, powered down, removed it’s monitor and the CD-ROM and powered back up.
I’m now configuring the new server from the sofa. The plan is to install Samba, SVN, TorrentFlux and anything else I spot that’s fancy.
Workshed MiniITX
Somewhere amongst all that stuff is a teeny, tiny motherboard being kept alive by all those cables!
Now to begin the painful linux setup…
Workshed MiniITX
MS thought it would be a nice idea to include an MPEG decoder with Vista Home Premium/Ultimate. Though it is very nice of them the one they provide is rubbish; it’s quite poor at upscaling and it has no hardware support so you may notice it being slow even with a dual core CPU and 2Gb or RAM (I certainly did!).
To fix this you can install your own MPEG2 decoder (I use TheaterTek which uses a modified version of Nvidia PureVideo) and run this little app written by this guy. In the case of PureVideo you can see if its working by checking the system tray when watching TV or playing a video - if a Nvidia icon appears it works!
Unfortunately this will only work for 32-bit Vista, if you bought 64-bit you’re stuck using the crap decoder until someone writes a 64-bit replacement that supports decoding hardware.
Workshed Media Center
There’s a guide here on how to enable concurrent Remote Desktop sessions in Vista (that includes Home Premium which isn’t even supposed to support Remote Desktop).
However this didn’t work for me, luckily I stumbled across a batch file which does it for you.
Workshed Media Center
Very handy if you have a Media Center with multiple users (which you will have if you enable concurrent Remote Desktop). Just whack the following in a command prompt:
control userpasswords2
Then untick “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer”, hit OK and you’ll be prompted to enter the details of the user you want to auto-login.
Workshed Media Center
That’s right this little lump of plastic will allow you to do just that!
Unfortunately they want a ridiculous amount to post it over to these shores but luckily where there’s a will there’s an Ebay seller. I’ve ordered one for some 2 player GH3 goodness and to be able to just buy Rock Band without all those over priced accessories and play the guitar sections 
Workshed Playstation 3
I’ve been experimenting with Windows Media Center Vista plugins and this one is great, it allows you to set recordings from the web and even has a decent layout for viewing on a Windows Mobile device. I’ve also added a couple of other Media Center plugins and essentials to the links.
Workshed Media Center