My Mac died, now what?

I'll start this off by saying, I'm the first one to (jokingly) chime in with 'buy a mac' when somebody has a windows problem, so I fully expect to get some grief here
After only about 5 years my mac mini died. The logicboard is dead. It was only used as a PVR, and I want to replace it. Even though my track record with my other apple products has been beyond stellar, I'm thinking about replacing it with a non-apple product. I don't think the light use it gets warrants the cost of a new mini.
So, should I just buy a windoze thing with and call it good?
Tell me about Linux and Ubunto. I don't know how much time I have to learn how to be a linux guy, is it a pain in the butt?

Windows is the easy button if the PVR hardware you want to use is supported.

Linux (in this case Ubuntu or Linux Mint) works fine, too, if the hardware is supported in Linux and by your PVR software. If not, you're be swearing a lot and then install Windows.

Edit: Why not see if you can get a (used) replacement logic board on ebay?

I thought about a used board. I'll look into it

Kodi, from the XBMC people, seems interesting. It's running natively on OSX, Linux and Windows. If you like Apple/OSX I'd get another Mini, but Windows + building my own is also appealing. I'm really not sure why you'd consider Linux if you like OSX. Technically OSX is FreeBSD + different kernel + a ton of commercialization from Apple so if you want to use a *nix, I'd stick with OSX.

In reply to pres589:

Well, if DrBoost wants to use a 'nix on non-Apple hardware, he's probably best off using a flavour of Linux unless he builds a hackintosh. And at that point it's probably easier and cheaper to just replace the logic board.

Logic boards for those things are stupidly expensive.

If you are just looking for a PVR no reason to get fancy honestly. Depending on the interface that the PVR, We sell our optiplex micro chassis for under $500 with wireless and BT through our refurb site. It'll have a really small footprint and 500 GB storage usually.

What about replacing the bad board? How much would that cost ya?

Anyway, if it wasn't for the PVR requirement, I'd say get a Raspberry PI 2 with OpenElec/Kodi, a USB Media Center Remote, a wifi dongle (unless you have a hardwired connection available) and maybe an audio add-on to improve sound output and call it good.

Since you're using it as a PVR, then you'll need something more powerful. Pick your poison, basically choose the hardware that will work best for your needs (I'd look at ITX systems with HDMI built in and potentially RAID to keep it small but powerful) and then download and burn a copy of KodiBuntu:

http://kodi.wiki/view/KodiBuntu

Some options available for Kodi for PVR use:

http://kodi.wiki/view/PVR

Google around a bit as well and see what might work best for your needs and try them out.

Worst case it doesn't work and you have to install Winblowz or something.

Ok, what you guys said about lin-bunto made me decide not to go that rout. I just have NO idea what the heck you're talking about.
BMW88rider, do you have a linkey for your site?

Its pretty straight forward, download the KodiBuntu image to a system with a DVD burner. Burn the image you downloaded to a DVD.

Place DVD into your PVR box and boot.

Follow onscreen prompts to install.

Once installed, use online Kodi guides to configure as you desire.

No harder than Windows or Apple and cheaper.

Heads up: Windows 8 sucks. We had our computer for about 3 months before the audio driver, keyboard driver, and the power button quit working. Backdated to windows 7 and all was good.

Plus I didn't really like the windows 8 interface... Bleh.

DrBoost wrote: I don't think the light use it gets warrants the cost of a new mini.

FYI - this puts the budget at less than $500, assuming the Doctor's time is free. I'd personally separate the playback device (the Mini) from the storage, makes it a lot easier to upgrade down the road. I use a little RAID NAS, then I can play back from anything on the network include the iThingies. The computers come and go, the NAS box is a constant. If I need more space, then it's a matter of buying a couple of new hard drives and plugging them in.

Do you have any Real Computers in the house? If so, why not look at using a Wifi connection to the TV? I know that Amazon sells the Fire Stick and Google has a doohicky that does something similar. If you've got Apple stuff in the house already, the AppleTV lets you mirror the screen from a Mac or an iThingy. It's got a few other tricks as well, but it makes for a very slick setup.

I've thought about the google stick and stuff like that. I currently used the mini to surf the web as well, to stream stuff from netflix, watch stuff on BBC, and such. If I used appleTV I wouldn't be able to do that, at least not from the living room since the iMac is in the other room.
I like the idea of having the computing power separate the playback and storage. Makes sense. What is this RAID NAS you speak of? I'll be googling it in a few. I'm currently swapping remotes. One Harmony 880 also kicked the bucket (bad day for couch potatoing at the Boost household) so I'm programming the other one.

Not much to add here except to note that Windows 10 is out Wednesday. Windows 10 does not get Windows Media Center. If you decide Windows Media Center is what you want, you need to stick with Windows 8.1 or below.

Linux is like an Apple box without the restrictive GUI interface and irritating rules.

Learn it. Love it. It runs well on most things. A little googling will tell you what hardware to avoid if you are Newegging it... but most stuff works these days. Just check before you buy a high end gaming video card or cutting edge USB doohickey.

Kodi, MythTV, etc all work well for PVR/DVR.

The big thing the AppleTV brings to the table is AirPlay. It's seamless, and you're not going to find it on a Linux setup. It only works if you have other Apple products in the house, but if you do it works like all those convergence demos that have been showing for years. Interface is not an issue, it becomes a pipe. I rarely deal with the AppleTV interface itself.

If you don't have other Apple products, then it's just Yet Another Smart TV Peripheral and there are lots to choose from.

The NAS I use is no longer available (of course), but there are a lot of options on the market. Get one with DLNA/UPnP server capability (I suspect most have it), pair that with the 8player app on an iOS device and you can play back most video and graphic formats on an iThingy. You can also save files to your device for later playback - even in non-Apple formats. Nice and easy. Again, this is an Apple-centric workaround but Dr Boostie did mention Apple in his initial post. If you're running Windows or *nix, then it'll also serve to them with their appropriate apps or file access protocols.

www.dell.com/outlet

sorry should have mentioned that. Look at the 3020 micro's

Quick item to check, take your mini to the "genius" bar and have them look at it. Logic board just went out on my wife's 5 year old macbook and we were already resigned to expensive repair or replacing her laptop.

Genius dude looks at it, says yep its the logic board, if your data is backed up I'll send it out and have it back in 3 days. No charge, there's a known issue with that board so they replace them for free.

Might get lucky and find a similar recall on yours.

JThw8 wrote: Quick item to check, take your mini to the "genius" bar and have them look at it. Logic board just went out on my wife's 5 year old macbook and we were already resigned to expensive repair or replacing her laptop. Genius dude looks at it, says yep its the logic board, if your data is backed up I'll send it out and have it back in 3 days. No charge, there's a known issue with that board so they replace them for free. Might get lucky and find a similar recall on yours.

That's worth a try. Thanks. It's only 5 or so years old. That's 13 months in microsoft years