[kwlug-disc] Convergence is an ongoing thing. What (in) 'Home Server'?

[unsolicited]

Groping here ...

Premise:

Convergence is a moving target. We've had a number of presentations, 
be it MythTV, Asterisk, lmce, and/or combinations. They have mostly 
centered around TV (Myth) and VoIP (Asterisk) to date, and 
understandably so. Umpteen other things such as IM could be added to 
the list.

Any given enterprise, be it 100 locations, a single workstation 
installation, or a home, has various best practice gateway services 
(first thing off the router), network services (ntp, dhcp, dns, samba, 
endless more), and various other 'network one-off' beasties (backups) 
that one could reasonably say should be combined together into a 'home 
server.' Bonus is a single box that can then be duplicated 
(redundantized?), presumably involving the equivalent of a NAS facility.

What's out there?

My read of the consensus at the end of the last lmce presentation was:
- if all you really want is 'media' (MythTV/Asterisk), you will likely 
have a more pleasant out of box experience with a tailored distro / 
installation.
- if you are in it for the long term (or only want a single learning 
curve), and think home control and so on will ultimately become 
ubiquitous, and I think it will, lmce is probably a better answer. 
Despite their attitudes and less pleasant out of box experience.

What else is out there headed in the same direction as the original 
premise, above? (Think lmce.) I'm prepared to put on the padding and 
descend into lmce, but before doing so I thought I'd better check if 
there's anything else out there. (I gather pluto has stopped all 
efforts, so whatever else ever comes out of lmce, it will be 
completely community driven.)

I finally thought to search on 'home server' and 'gateway' on 
wikipedia, falling into the inevitable bottomless pit of internet 
material and links.

Anyone have a magic search term that will more directly get me towards 
what I'm groping around for? Without such, at the moment, I'm reduced 
to wallowing around in a sea of ... stuff.