Is it possible to build Plex Media Player on Raspbian ?

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Hello,

I’d like to know if somebody has already successfully build Plex Media Player on Raspberry Pi 3 ?

I understand that there are full OS images available for raspberry pi (that work great by the way)
But the Operation System provided on those images is Read only. I can’t find any documentation about it but it seems to be a kind of OpenElec based OS. But a few programs are missing on it (For example LCD driver and software)

So I’m wondering if this is possible to install Raspbian and then compile Plex Media Player on it. (or any working plex client)
That could be great !

2

+1: the PMP image isn’t sufficiently up to date to support my audio card, whereas Raspbian is - the only documentation I’ve found so far is on the github repository: https://github.com/plexinc/plex-media-player
I’m going to give that a try, but I think there will be a lot of dependency chasing.

1 Like
3

You can build the Embedded image with this thing: https://github.com/plexinc/LibreELEC.tv

It’s quite heavy because it builds an entire OS. You configure it for RPI and then write it to a SD card.

I’ve never managed to build PMP on Raspbian myself (mostly because of Qt and the relatively slow CPU).

4

No good: I don’t want LibreELEC (I run headless) and need the alsa drivers in current Raspbian

5

the PMP image isn’t sufficiently up to date to support my audio card

Hello Richard,

I am using PMP image right now on a headless raspberry pi + DAC
And sound is working fine.

Did you try to edit the /flash/config.txt file in order to activate sound management ?
You can try to uncomment one of the following line in the file:

# dtoverlay=hifiberry-amp
dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac
# dtoverlay=hifiberry-dacplus
# dtoverlay=hifiberry-digi

Then reboot and type asound -l to see if the sound card is detected.

Anyway I’de like to try to build PMP on Raspbian someday but It needs a lot of time :slight_smile:

6

and need the alsa drivers in current Raspbian

Good point. You’ll need to apply the ALSA surround PCM output kernel patches and rebuild the kernel.

7

@superjcvd said:

the PMP image isn’t sufficiently up to date to support my audio card

Hello Richard,

I am using PMP image right now on a headless raspberry pi + DAC
And sound is working fine.

Did you try to edit the /flash/config.txt file in order to activate sound management ?
You can try to uncomment one of the following line in the file:

# dtoverlay=hifiberry-amp
dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac
# dtoverlay=hifiberry-dacplus
# dtoverlay=hifiberry-digi

Then reboot and type asound -l to see if the sound card is detected.

Anyway I’de like to try to build PMP on Raspbian someday but It needs a lot of time :slight_smile:

I hadn’t edited the config.txt - will give that a go. However, I still haven’t managed to build PMP locally, due to an apparent file reference bug on make - User-Agent: curl/7.38.0

Host: nightlies.plex.tv
Accept: /
The requested URL returned error: 404 Not Found

So which image are you successfully using? very keen to know! :slight_smile:

8

Hello @richardh999

I’m using the Beta image of PMP available for Plexpass members

https://downloads.plex.tv/plexmediaplayer-openelec/1.2.2.596-d1355001/PlexMediaPlayer-1.2.2.596-d1355001.RPi2-arm.img.gz

9

Back to the OP can I ask if this is an option yet?

He asked “So I’m wondering if this is possible to install Raspbian and then compile Plex Media Player on it. (or any working plex client). That could be great !”

I’d like to be able to have PMP as an app available on my RetroPie installation - I dont want to have to dual boot. Possible? I dont think using an addon to Kodi is really the same… or optimal!

10

Like a lot of other people I don’t want to install the dedicated OS/OpenElec etc version. I just want to install Plex Media Player application.

So has anyone had any success in building for Raspberry Pi?

11

I’m with @tomsimmons

I need my Pi for plex but also web browsing, rdesktop etc that you can’t do in the OpenElec version

12

I’m with @tomsimmons also. The current build of PMP embedded does not have Hifiberry cards nor does it have alsa installed. Also needs to work with Pi3B+ (which the latest 2.17.0 does but no alsa, etc.).

13

2019 no response and I’m in same situation. Want to use raspberry for Plex, browsing, remote desktop and web server. Anyone has a solution to this? Actually I’m using web browser with my local Plex page server to play but it’s a little laggy.

15

Maybe the Raspberry Pi 4 B will have enough grunt to meet the specs for a Linux native client build?

16

I gave up and got a second 3B+ with RasPlex attached with a short Ethernet cable.

Currently considering building a custom case for the 2 Pi’s and 2 HD’s.