I'm really happy with mythtv. Is there an opensource setup for other home automation tasks? Like pluto home but you know open source. I'm thinking about building a house in the next 12-18 months. So I'm tring to research what I might want to install for networks/security/automation.

Ohhh I feel stupid. I just noticed Pluto home is already open source. The fancy website threw me off for a bit there.

ryan, please report back if you do try and use Plutohome. I gave it a whirl a bit after they released it, and man was it a pain in the rear end. And ugly as sin, despite the jazzy website. Your post reminded me of it, so I plan on giving it another go when I have some time.

As for open-source options. MisterHouse is pretty popular with linux folks, but nothing about it is user friendly. I used it and a couple of 3COM Audreys from ebay to setup home control and it worked well. Granted I did a lot of work on a front-end web interface to make it useable. You can certainly go this route. My current setup, and the 2 other installs I have done in the last year have been based on a MacMini and Indigo Home Automation Software. With some work, you can create a web interface to control parts of your home. The nice thing is how easy it is for the average person to setup Indigo and get things running. My setup handles Heating and Air, Sprinklers, 90% of all the lights in the house, some of the security functions, tied to a more elaborate system. With a few apple scripts and PHP, it also has some interaction with MythTV. There are a lot of good PC apps as well, but I have not had any recent experience with these. If you are doing a new home build, check out this company. http://www.redradio.com/ Kick ass little LCD units... If I was doing an install, I would put these in in a heart beat.

Thanks for the tips. Looking up MisterHouse & Indigo gave me about a thousand pages to read though.