Replacing my Apple TV; some questions

I think it’s almost time to replace my Apple TV–it’s great for streaming audio, and Boxee is a nice touch, but it just doesn’t have the horsepower for things like streaming live baseball or Netflix. I’ve long thought I’d replace it with a Mac mini–one of the most underrated Macs ever, in my opinion–but I’ve got a couple of issues to investigate:

• Are there any Mac-compatible USB-to-optical audio converters? My receiver tends to work better with optical audio. I'd like something like this but it doesn't appear to have Mac drivers. Anybody used the M-Audio Transit with a Mac? I just realized I'm overcomplicating this issue; the mini's already got digital audio built-in and I just need to convert it to Toslink.
• I'm guessing DVI-to-HDMI has been sorted out, but I want to do a little homework there as well and I actually have one of that adapters; it came with my HD video kit I bought awhile back.
• Are there any good wireless keyboard/trackpad-type combinations? Or maybe I should just go with VNC, huh?

I’m also not ruling out a Boxee/Ubuntu combo, as I figure I could get some refurbished hardware to support that setup for not a whole lot of money.

If anyone happens to read this and has any insights, I’d love to hear them.

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