Soo...

I have my gaming PC which holds most of my music, anime, ect ect.

I have my laptop w/ HDMI output and wireless network connection.

I have my 56" Samsung DLP HDTV w/ HDMI Inputs and is just plain fun to watch anime on.

I hate leaving my gaming PC on for hours at a time and making it double as my "file server" to share videos and music over my network to my laptop so I can watch them on my TV, or listen to music in my living room from my PC, ect ect.

So I want to build a file server that uses low power, requires little resources, and costs relatively little, and is something I wouldn't mind leaving on for days at a time. I've found some barebones systems on newegg that fit this quite nicely, however, I don't want to purchase another copy of Windows XP (or god forbid Vista) so I'm wanting to install some sort of Linux OS on it.

I don't know shit about networking through Linux, or if Linux and Windows will talk to each other properly to let me access drives on the Linux system from the Windows computers in my house. I also don't know if, later on when I upgrade, if Linux would let me RAID two SATA HDDs.

So is there anyone out there who runs a dedicated file server in their house that has some tips to share?