OpenSolaris with ZFS. Because you know you want to and it's so cool even the cool kids don't know it yet. Before long you'll be obsessively reading up on L2ARC performance, dreaming of adding write-optimized SSDs to your zpools and watching all the mailing lists hoping for the latest news on slog removal.

Norm, I'm in the middle of a build, and I found this recent guide v. useful: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/guides/2009/04/ars-technica-system-guide-april-2009-edition.ars

I built my own media machine for the living room a couple of years ago using a Shuttle barebones kit. I was pretty pleased with the mix of hand holding and DIY accomplishment that a Shuttle machine gives you. The cases are small and they have quiet setups also. If you want cheap, look for them on ebay.

Before you choose Solaris Norm, just check out the apps list you want. Availability for Solaris could be an issue.

I've recently built my living room computer using tips from silentpcreview.com - it is a good starting point, imho better than tom's hardware.

A few more links you might find useful:

General system building with up-to-date component suggestions:

- http://mysuperpc.com/ (best one IMO - updated 6/6/09)

"Silent PC" building links

- http://www.silent.se/

- http://users.linpro.no/janl/hardware/quiet-pc.html

- http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000665.html

And some component sites:

- http://www.quietpcusa.com/

- http://www.endpcnoise.com/

- PC Case Gear "Quiet PC" category

FWIW, I really like the Antec cases, particularly the Sonata and friends. I haven't kept up in recent years, but I can't imagine they've abandoned there quality or commitment to quiet cases.

Good luck!

I too have always wanted to build my own computer and I can see from this great article that I have a lot to learn yet, thanks for the informative item, good luck to you. Carrie

About the OS, if you want to use MarkLogic, you are limited to Solaris and Red Hat Enterprise. But if you know an alternative, I am interested ;-)

MarkLogic Server will run just fine on other Linux distributions, with a small amount of startup script hacking. Those aren't supported configurations, but I'm not calling this a production box (no matter that I'll end up using it that way :-) so I don't mind.

I come back occasionally to see what you have done. By now we should know if OpenSolaris is working out for you and what hardware you eventually used. Just curious.

I've picked out some potential hardware but haven't actually purchased it yet. I'll post more when I do.

Might be worth keeping an eye on this: http://www.autodeist.com/node/62

I have the WDTV from Western Digital and with the current firmware update it works really well, but if it could be made to do more I'd be happy to get in and program it. Not so much a hardware hacker like this person though (he wants to add networking to it, which would obviously be necessary for your web server requirement). I'd be happy to find someone that's figured out how to build a new compatible firmware.

Currently I have it connected to a USB SATA HDD dock so I don't need networking. I just plug that HDD into my computer, upload stuff to it then dock the HDD to watch on my TV. Works well and infinitely upgradable (the HDD I have right now is an older 300GB I wasn't using as I upgrade to 1TB in my main computer recently).

I might try this at some point with my WDTV: http://b-rad.cc/wdlxtv (thanks Google)

Because the OS of the WDTV is essentially Linux there are others making changes. This is a good summary page that has good links: http://wdtv.wetpaint.com/page/Unofficial+firmware

So, apparently with the addition of a USB-Ethernet device (ranging from a dongle thing to a cable) you could get a web server running on this thing. That would be pretty fun to try.