Good morning all,

I am looking to build a home theatre PC with the follow hardware:
M2N-VM DVI mobo with an AMD 4800+ x2 CPU
2G RAM
MCE USB Remote and receiver
Graphics are currently integrated; as is the audio. Both of these will likely be add-on cards in future.
The listed hardware will form the basics to which I will add on as budget allows.

I have no idea what OS/appplications to use.

My background:
I am very computer literate in both Windows and Linux. Cannot code bash to save myself lol
Very proficient with hardware as well.
Up until now I have used an old IBM workhorse with a P4 2.8GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM. This also contained an FX5500 PCI graphics card. The OS was Ubuntu with XBMC installed. However I am getting sick of the hack jobs required to get this installed as well as having to have a keyboard/mouse installed.

What I want to happen is this:

An OS which has no issues with my current hardware (nVidia card and Intel HDA audio) and future hardware I might add. If an application is used on top of an OS, this is ok.
The computer will need to boot directly to the Media Centre shell (without using 3 other applications like shellinstaller etc etc); and if the shell is exited, the computer either shuts down or goes to the OS as per which exit mode is used.

A remote control will handle all usage within the shell. NO wireless mouse or keyboard

Is this possible? If so, how

(I have no problem buying an OS etc - I just don't want to buy things that dont work.)

There is a limited budget - i.e. I don't want to be spending 1K

Ideally; my computer literate 7 year old will be able to turn the computer on, then use the remote to navigate to a movie of their choice and watch it.