Thoughts on building a home automation server & NAS

I've been running a Clark-Connect (free version) home server (router, firewall, network attached storage) for about 4 years now and I'm thinking it's time to upgrade.

To a Ubuntu 8.10 server with some shiny new hardware.

• Lower power requirement gigabit nic Intel Atom mini-itx mainboard ~44W
• Single "green" 1TB WD SATA drive
• small Apex MI-100 with 230W supply
• no other drives once the OS is installed.
• printer sharing

And would like to add...

• Auto shutdown (during the wee hours when we're sleeping)
• Auto wakeup (easy BIOS) and/or Wakeup on LAN (easy)
• A powerbar that shuts down devices when the PC shuts off (seen some on Tiger Direct)

But I'm not a linux guru (Clark Connect makes it a no brainer) but Ubuntu is a little more hands on to get the thing setup right. I could simply put CC on again but wanted to get my hands dirty with Ubuntu 8.10 server.

I just wanted to share my experences with the project that will eventually become part of a home automation server (get that thermostat under control)

Comments welcome.

Your thermostat hard to wrangle for some reason? You seem to have a lot of emphasis on heating and cooling controls these days.

That power bar that shuts other things down when the computer is off sounds pretty spiffy. Probably uses a current sensor. It could shut off programmers, emulators, external drives, external sound amps and other things that only need to work when the computer is running. Please post the name of it when you order one.