Dear Lazyweb,

I'm tempted to buy one of this neat boxes with embedded hard drive, network interface, sound card and TV output to use as a media center for the house. I've seen some of them in an ample range of prices, but all of them lack any detailed description of what's running inside. I'll bet that most of them are running Linux, but I'd like to be able to modify it to my heart's content. For example to use MPD as a music server, be able to mount filesystems with sshfs, and whatnot.

I'm also tempted to take the 'Neuf box' that was given by the internet company, add a USB sound card and external hard drive; but already some people jumped to warn me about the dreaded terms of use contract, and all that jazz. Plus, having everything in a compact box seems more convenient for a not so big price. Does anybody have a recommendation on this? Being able to buy it in France is a plus