In accordance with the new law as mentioned from Thoughts and Action, I will be building myself an Ubuntu box for classwork and to become familiar with the Unix/Linux environment.  From my last upgrade to my current machine I have the following spare parts laying around

• A8N-SLI Premium Mobo with AMD FX-55 Processor and 1.5GB DDR Memory
• GeForce 8800GTX video card
• 80GB Hard Drive
• Incredibly cheap, falling apart case
• SB Live! 5.1 sound card
• Possibly broken, crossing my fingers that it isn’t, cd-rom drive
• Spare keyboard
• Spare Logitech MX1000 wireless mouse
• Couple of spare CRT monitors

So from the ashes will be reborn this unholy beast!  Although asides from class, I don’t know what I’ll do with it.  I may pop on MythTV or something.  Anyone have any suggestions as to what one can do with such a thing?  Also I may need a new power supply.  If worse comes to worst, what I may have to do is buy a new case this weekend and transplant my current rig into a new case and build this tiny dude into my current one.

Secondarily and this is minor, is what to do about keyboard/mouse/monitor.  Do I want to clutter up my desk with a fat CRT?  My Dell 20″ has a free dsub input but the switching time is annoying.  Most people suggest synergy so I don’t have to have a second set of keyboard/mouse laying around.  I dunno we’ll see.