All, Very shortly I plan on building out my new workstation, specifically for audio and video editing and production. Might do some music, but mostly speech content on the audio side of things. The video will be mostly video of presentations, but may be some more intensive items. Here's the basic idea right now: 4U Rack Mount Case - From New Egg, like $70-$80. Intel Mobo - Not sure which one, anything with a decent amount of PCI slots available I suppose Intel Proc - I'm probably going to go for a Core 2 Duo I suppose. Best I can afford. Ram - 2GB or greater, Crucial or some such Hard drives - SATA, atleast 3, 2 of which would be mirrored (data drive). Looking at 250GB or greater for those. Audio Card - M-Audio Delta 66 most likely, but possibly the 1010 if I can swing it. Audio Hardware - I've got an AT849 boundary mic, a few SM57's, etc., which will be going through an ART TPS II mic pre. That should cover me on audio, whether I'm doing speech, or mic'ing up the piano, etc. Video Card - Having a bit of an issue here. I'm borderline zealot, and REALLY want to stick with Intel here due to their pledge of open source drivers... but it seems to me that noone is making an intel based standalone video card anymore - only on the mobo. Display - I'd like to stick to CRT for color correction issues, but I do worry a bit about any noise because of a CRT monitor. Also, since my intent is to go widescreen... I dunno. Maybe I should just go LCD from the start. Video Hardware - I've got a canon elura 1-chip minidv camcorder, a sony 3 chip with horrible audio, and access to recordings from the new canon hdv camcorder. Plus whatever else I get my hands on through work :) Control Surface - I'd LOVE to be able to use something like the new TASCAM FW-1082, but I have no idea how well any control surfaces work with Linux. Software-wise, I'm a KDE guy, but I'll probably be using Ardour, jack, Cinellera/Kino, so on. I don't know how KDENLiVES is working nowadays, I'll have to test it out. Probably use Kubuntu, though I might go the Gentoo route. So anyone have any recommendations for me? Better heat sinks to reduce fan noise, mobo, vid card, etc? Know a control system that works nicely? I've been through most of the FAQ's and such, just looking for input from the general user community :) Thanks, -Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin