First... a foobar like player... there's so many different audio playback programs available on linux that you'll get tired of trying them all... XMMS, VLC, xine, mplayer, and others come to mind.
Here's a concise link (that's getting out of date) that lists just
some of the free audio linux programs:
http://linux-sound.org/one-page.htmlNext... the Chaintech AV-710... it looks like it's had Ubuntu support for a long time..
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=187920...and since it looks like it's simply another card using the
ice1724 device driver, I'm not surprised. Lot's of search hits confirm that it worked for others.
The system... the linux drivers have made unbelievable progress in this area. So most motherboards will be supported outright. But there's still two areas that you need to be careful about... graphics adapters and wireless LAN cards. This is only because the damn manufacturer's won't release the chip specs, so the linux developers have to perform the herculean task of trying to reverse engineer these complicated beasts.
What I'm trying to say is, while that looks like a fine system, I'm sure others could work just as well. So don't feel too locked into a "linux certified" system (but it definitely would take any worries out of the equation). I've built lot's of systems from component parts without a problem.... google is your friend here. I just find something that looks interesting and search for the item and the word "
linux "... that should give you a good idea about any trouble you may have with it.
One of those systems I built is somewhat similar to where you're headed. A small Sempron, 512M RAM, quiet fan, audio card (Audiophile 2496), removable RAID, and SPDIF out to an external DAC... all sitting in the stereo rack. The gauges tell me that the CPU is damn near at idle, and still gobs of free RAM when playing FLAC files... so your idea of a small, cheap system is a good one.
I run my Linux audio jukebox headless (no keyboard, mouse, or monitor). Control is done either using a remote (
http://www.lirc.org/) or remotely from another box (
many options available here...
moc is one... works frigg'n great for the stuff we tape...
http://moc.daper.net/). My non-geek friends are amazed when i tap a key on the laptop and the music changes in the other room
OK... now to linux sound. The first sound
subsystem was called OSS. It worked well, but had some shortcomings (couldn't output sound from two applications at the same time, etc.). It's been phased out and all the distros have now gone to ALSA (
http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Main_Page). It's powerful and extremely flexible (works very well with many, many sound cards that aren't even remotely similar)... but that also makes it extremely complicated... and like some other large open source projects that are expanding exponentially over a short time, the documentation isn't there yet... in fact it sucks.
So... unless your willing to roll up you sleeves and get some ALSA mud smeared on you, my advice is to make sure your audio card is a "popular" linux card... and any of the "ice1712" or "ice1724" cards
should fit the bill here... check the list on their web page for others. But I'm thinking that your Chaintech card will probably work "out of the box" with Ubuntu.
So there's some good, bad, and ugly. Should you stick with windoze or go with linux? My vote is to give linux a try... it's free... Ubuntu is a good distro for a beginner... it's got great community support if you run into trouble... and if works for you, there's about a hundred bucks still in your pocket