So, I have mentioned the previous misadventures of me and my media server. After much debate and discussion in #dw (I seriously ♥ you all for putting up with my annoying tech-support-ish questions, seriously), I came to the conclusion that the reason I've had a ton of boot issues is because my main, big drive on the machine was having problems spinning up adequately when the machine was started, which lead to it failing to various points in the boot cycle (depending how much it had spun up). Between that and SpinRite finding a bunch of sectors it couldn't fix, I decided these were signs that while the drive was not dead, it was probably on the road there, and that it would be better to replace it before it actually died.

So I went out and got a 3TB WD Caviar Green from NCIX, my local parts chain (on sale for $30 less than NewEgg had it before shipping, no less), and set about recovering files from the bad drive, reinstalling Xubuntu 12.04, and configuring all the drives to automount. There were a few hitches along the way, but the only unsolveable one is that it turns out my salvaged memory card reader is incompatible with Ubuntu versions after 9.10 or so, due to updates in how the kernel handles USB devices. So when I have some money, I think this thing finally deserves an IR reciever and remote, and a new memory card reader that's actually USB 2.0 compatible.

I also renamed the machine and all it's drives, as azurelunatic made me realize that naming a machine after a city that gets blown up is almost as inauspicious as naming devices after crazy villains (I named an mp3 player Sephiroth once. Bad idea). So my FF7 naming scheme has been laid to rest in favor of a Gundam 00 based one, because... nerd. So:

- Veda - my sleek little Alienware laptop (it has been Veda since I bought it, actually)
- Celestial Being - The media server
* Setsuna - boot, programs and docs drives (because he's the important one)
* Lockon - Games, comic scans, RPG books, misc Fun Stuff (because you know Lockon is the one with the most normal concept of 'fun')
* Tieria - the 3TB drive for video files (because Tieria is the master of GIANT GUNDAMS)
* Allelujah - music (...because it needed a drive. Sorry Alle, I really do love you anyway)

When I have some free time to dig into files, I'm going to try to make a skin for XBMC that looks like the Ptolemy's computer interfaces, I think.

Also, in the category of 'this might be a sign', I started up RhythmBox, imported my collection of roughly five thousand songs, put it on shuffle - and this is what I got first. Yes, Gundam 00 music. And this is what the desktop looks like when not cluttered with windows.