I've thought about moving it to Linux for some time but I don't want to get into a situation where the camera system is down for a long period of time while I flail around trying to make it work. But I also don't want to just kick the can down the road for another year.
I've also thought of buying a dedicated #NVR solution and retiring the machine but I haven't found a solution in my price range that I think will work long-term.
(2/n)
Well, at least I finally installed the cheap NVR+Camera we bought. Just not where it was supposed to go 
Been messing around with cheap Chinese CCTV. So we can record who the fuck leaves little black poops in front of our dog while he sleeps 
This is XMeye based, so it must never get connected to the Internet and it really wants to, but it can be exorcised to work fine in island configuration. Then you get a pretty decent setup for an unbeatable price. Can still VPN into a DMZ for remote access, or have it drop files.
It's all PoE based, so only one cable per camera.
