The revolution Steve Vanechanos sees for the future is already taking place. It is somewhat strange but Linux is used in some of the new products while the Linux audio community does not seem to be actively involved very much in that revolution. In some aspects I do not have the same vision as Steve. I would not want to transport audio information over long distances using analog means. Audio information should be kept digital as close to the speakers as possible. I would want to have the (digital) amplifiers close to the speakers. The audio output from the Linux box should be data streams (i.e. a network interface). If WiFi/WLAN is used one can get rid of some cables. The future is wireless. I doubt that wall mounted panels make sense as the main remote controls in a home environment. One probably would like to have portable control devices after a few days (or hours) of standing up, walking to those walls and sitting down again. I have appended a list of Open Source projects which could probably be used as a foundation or framework for the software of a home audio network and a list of devices which are interesting for this or that reason. The Open Source projects deal with audio and video, but nobody is forced to watch video streams to use that software. Cheers, Andreas BTW: Have a look at the ultimate house: http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/ ----- MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/) Video Disc Recorder (http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/) DVR http://dvr.sourceforge.net/ LinVDR (http://www.linvdr.org/) freevo (http://freevo.sourceforge.net/) NMM (http://www.networkmultimedia.org/) Dave/Dina Project (http://www.davedina.org/content/) ----- Terratec Noxon Audio [WLAN device, inexpensive] http://productsen.terratec.net/ Slim Devices Squeezebox [WLAN device, SlimDevices Inc. has an interesting business model and is interested in close relations with the Open Source community. Their SlimServer software was released under the GPL. It is implemented in Perl] http://www.slimdevices.com/ Roku SoundBridge [WLAN device] http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/index.php MacSense Homepad [WLAN device] http://www.macsense.com/product/homepod/ http://www.gloolabs.com/ cd3o network mp3 player [WLAN device] http://www.cd3o.com/ D-Link DSM-320 [WLAN device] http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=318 Netgear Wireless Digital Music Player MP101 [WLAN device] http://www.netgear.com/products/details/MP101.php Pinnacle ShowCenter Wireless G [WLAN device] http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage_n.asp?Product_ID=1491&Langue_ID=7 Sound Blaster Wireless Music [WLAN device] http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=243&subcategory=247&produc t=9192 Apple Airport Express [WLAN device] http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/ Sony STR-LV700R [WLAN device, includes amplifier, not found on the American Sony website] http://www.sony.de/PageView.do?site=odw_de_DE&page=ProductHome§ion=de_DE_Pro ducts&productmodel=%2FAudio%2FHiFi+Components%2FHFC+Receiver%2FSTR-LV700R&produc tcategory=%2FAudio%2FHiFi+Components%2FHFC+Receiver Pontis Media Server MS300 [Media Server, uses Linux, Samba and DHCP] http://pontis.de/site_e/produkte/ms_300_e.htm
