i love my dreambox. there are ways to get it working just fine as a sky box i believe but i dont sub to sky so havent tried it.
i posted to the list about this subject a while ago ill see if i can dig it out.
here it is.
one very fun piece of linux kit is the dreambox. i got one of a satsupplier in norwich and i havent looked back since.
its a linux based satellite reciever, built in hard drive for time delay and recordings.combined with a £20 monoblock lnb(the thing that sits poking out of the dish)
it picks up thousands of channels many of which show premiummovies, music, sports etc all free of the tyranny of murdoch. heres a nice little howto/intro
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/DigiTV/dbox-howto.htm
alot of these channels are encrypted but the great thing about thedreambox is that because its hard drive based its able to emulate alot of the protection mechanisms.
doesnt work for sky (yet, and even if it did youd be putting your headon the legal chopping board if you tried it) although it is possible to use your legit sky card in the dreambox thus freeing yourself from the unreliable digibox.
theres a very active coding scene which means you are able to replacethe very nice but slightly boring original firmware with flashydistros (or images as they are often called.) im presently using plidiamond image from the plinux team.
heres the release notes:
The Diamond Images featuring:- 1.09 kernel (2.6.9)- 1.09 enigma (19-12-2005)- Squashfs 2.2-r2 withLZMA-compression- Front Processor version 1.06- New PMT Interface: anew interface between Enigma and an Emu/Softcam - Softcam / CardserverSetup incl. Sticky SoftCams using new PMT interface - Private EPG forPremiere - Manual (Un)Install of plugins/addons etc- Enable/Disableautomatic download of software menu index - Dreambox Tools: CheckCronjobs & Free Space; ECM-, Memory-, Mgcamd-Info, NetStat, Processlist - Tuxtxt v1.94 - Settings to control infobar on zap and OK -Skin: The name of the current running emu (e.g. 'camxng') - Skin: Thevideo format of the current service (e.g. '704x576 4:3 25 fps') -Skin: Caid types supported in the current stream - Skin: Frequency,FEC, Polarisation, Symbol rate - Language Setup- Var to USB/HDD- DebugSettings- Create your own script control panel under the Blue Setupbutton- Firewall ready- Crond ready- OSD supports: Yellow Button -Addons/Plugins, Blue Button - PLi Setup- Password change allowed byuser to any password- Games ready- CIFS enabled- New filenaming ofyour Recorded Movies,- It will be shown as ---- Full Media Highway EPGsupport for ALL Media Highway EPG providers- Menu Language selectionin your own native language- No SoftCams onboard ALL to be downloaded
and their website http://pli.dreamvcr.com/diamond/releasenote/
lastly heres some satellite related websites which have tonnes moreinfo for those so inclined.
http://www.i-have-a-dreambox.com/wbb2/index.php