I’ve been hosting Plex for over 5 years on Windows machines, and I’ve finally migrated it over to a dedicated Linux box in my home. I just wanted a central machine to handle this without leaving my gaming computer on 24/7 so that my kid could watch Moana for the 932nd time in one day.
I’m running into the widely brought up problems many of you have either had or read about.
Some facts:
Linux box is a Dell XPS 8300
i7-2600 cpu
HD-5850 gpu
16GB ram (shows 12?)
6TB HGST Ultrastar main drive
5TB Toshiba second drive
So here’s some questions I’d like to get consensus on:
Should I give up the idea of using my 5TB NTFS drive with (90% full of media) and just move those files and re-format as ext4 and move them back?
I’m using the Snap install of Plex and I’m thinking this was a mistake - should I switch to dpkg?
Due to the remote-access black-screen issue with Ubuntu, I logged in as a different user over Remote Desktop to install the 5TB drive mentioned above, and now I’m running into all sorts of permissions problems on and off.
Please note that computer is now connected to the home network, but hard to do anything local because it is on a shelf in my garage without a monitor/keyboard/mouse
I’m not sure PLEX runs until I log into the main account and I’d like to be sure it’s always on and always re-starts if the PC loses power… I think this has to do with running as a service but I’m not totally sure
I use qBittorrent to get some media over remote desktop connection - is there a more streamlined way to get torrents started on the ubuntu machine from my win10 machine than this?
I’ve played with Linux here and there in the past… but it’s been since Ubuntu 7.10 since I last really touched it for anything other than throwing it on an old-laptop for a buddy who had broken his Windows XP machine or whatever
I appreciate any help and advice. I just wanna get this thing setup to run by itself with no interaction. Currently I use filezilla to xfer files, putty and kitty to access the terminal and windows remote desktop to do GUI stuff. I’m also trying to stick an ARK server on it (small, for 2 players) but that’s a whole other topic that I’m sure will frustrate me on another day!! lol
You can use NTFS in read only mode, but i would move the files and reformat just to not maybe run into weird problems in the future or permission issues. Should not take too long to move, can be done over night.
use the .deb package (dpkg) and then update it via apt
use ssh, chown our files to the correct user (likely plex). You can also try teamviewer if you have to have a gui but in the long run you want to use ssh on a remote-ish linux box.
not sure about the snap but if you install the .deb package (dpkg) plex starts on boot. if it does not type “systemctl enable plexmediaserver”
not sure i understand. You want to download the torrents on your w10 machine and then start it o the ubuntu torrent client?
That’s what I’m thinking. It just seems like it would be easier, if more time-consuming. But I been waiting to do this for a year, so what’s 1 more night?
Yes. I’ve also read that the dpkg is more current typically than the snap version.
I never created a plex user and I think that was a big mistake. I been running it all from the main superuser account.
another plus for the deb package it would seem
Yes because I’d rather the Linux machine do the seeding afterwards. I could easily download on windows and send it over to ubuntu via filezilla but then I’m still stuck seeding on windows. I know qBittorrent has a webUI but it’s not the cleanest/simplest. It does have a way to monitor a folder for new .torrent files tho and automatically start them… I think I just figured it out myself saying that!!
ugh. lol. a bit of work. after I remove the snap install of PLEX and change some user settings/add a user for plex all around, are there any commands I should run to make sure everything has “cleaned up after itself”?
3, 6) The .deb package will create a plex user for you. No idea about cleanup.
Ah i c, well i would recommend starting a torrent client on the ubuntu machine. No need to involve your windows machine at all. Then when you dl a torrent you can either upload it via the webgui to the torrent client or put it in a folder the torrent client watches via filezilla/scp/networkshare.
I dont know qBittorrent. rTorrent(client) + ruTorrent (web gui) is a nice combo but a bit complicated to set up, maybe there is a docker image for that. You can also use transmission, thats a bit easier, i think.
You could even automate the torrent download but thats a bit out of the scope of this forum, i guess.
NTFS can be read or written in Linux. The key with any drives is to keep them mounted to the same directory mount points so PMS will always have them available at boot time. The Ubuntu package you’ll want to install apt install ntfs-3g.
The dpkg package is the main, SNAP is an appliance and very minimalist. Access to GPUs is only for the hardcore users who understand . It’s Ubuntu’s form of a container (Docker) and , forgive me, a royal PITA to work with.
SSH (putty from windows) will get you started. I recommend installing Teamviewer on the host and set it to start at every boot. You’ll now have a very straight-forward “remote desktop” you can use with a UI to control access. The only limit of Teamviewer (free) is the 1hr limit per connected session. I’m not certain if this applies to local LAN (not tried that in a while) but do know it applies to remote desktop connections.
I would work towards having native EXT4 drives. Linux can export these via SMB for easy access from inside the house. Eventually have all file systems be native EXT4.
Plus your guide… And the comments from both of you guys were very very helpful. Thank you so much!!
I ended up using ssh to do everything… And now it’s perfect. I removed the snap install of plex. I also got qbittorrent functional via its webui. and Installed my ARK: survival evolved server on there as well
