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Insteon is a proprietary design, but the protocol is open. It is necessary if you want to control something. I have the PDF on this box somewhere, and I used it to hack the thermostat code to add a function (fan on/off) that wasn't there initially.

Insteon can work with Linux. My own setup runs on Windows, just because I'm using Homeseer - and until just a month ago HS did not run on Linux at all. The hardware interface (USB or serial) plugs into a userspace service, and that one exposes a port (don't remember what type) for multiple clients to connect. HS connects to that port. You can bypass all that if you need to, or you can even build your own Insteon hardware if you have nothing else to do :-) I can't think of anything secret there.

You can write Bash scripts to run your house. You will want to have some framework, though - you get a better view from shoulders of giants. Check out MisterHouse and LinuxHA. Do not waste your time on reinventing the wheel; use existing code and build on top of it.

Oh yeah, free software, take a look at Insteon software here (sorry I forgot). Yes it's my site and yes I really need to update it but I'm working on Insteon software.

X10 stuff is cheap but pretty easy to tinker with. A number of years ago I bought an X10 Firecracker kit. They occasionally have it on sale for around $5 without warning, so if you keep an eye on that site you might be able to get it really cheap. I hadn't used it in years but a little while ago I figured it'd be cool to be able to remotely turn my porch lights and other devices on/off from my smartphone (I have an iPhone). Since I have a linux box at home hooked up to a cable modem this was a fairly straightforward exercise. I used the BottleRocket software to control the X10 devices from the linux box then wrote a very simple bare-bones PHP interface to it. Poke a hole through my firewall to allow incoming connections (via authenticated HTTPS of course) and now with a couple of clicks I can do things like turn on my exterior lights when I leave work or a friends house. For anybody who is interested, I wrote everything up on my blog and posted the PHP code as well.

http://www.linuxha.com/

As of 2009/03, Insteon is fully supported for open source on unix or windows, but for this you must use a P(ower)L(ine)M(odem) (not a serial or USB PLC) and use it with misterhouse.

A favorite site of mine is Linux Home Automation. Decent amounts of good information.
I am of the opinion that Home Automation isn't as far along as it should be.

You can run a one wire network which uses 2 wires. There is a range of devices you can read information from, http://owfs.org/. For example you could run a temperature sensors in each room. Combined with a tool like http://www.cacti.net/ you can log an ongoing temperature graph. Combined with X10 http://www.linuxha.com/ you now could act on the information you receive. for example if the room reaches a certain temperature you switch on the fan. racker79

Maybe what you need is my book (boy am I going to catch sh*t for this): Linux Smart Homes For Dummies

Everything that has been posted to the developer forum about open source software. Has been agreed to be posted as far I a know.

Example:
http://www.linuxha.com/athome/common/iplcd/index.h tml

And I know for a fact that Neil Cherry (the developer of the above software) got permission from Smarthome to release the software.