Have been using PMS on a Synology NAS for several years but I would like to ‘upgrade’ to a dedicated PMS, probably using a refurbished mini PC with something like an Intel I5-7500T cpu.
Asking for advice on a good OS choice? Only really used Windows and don’t think that would be best, too resource hungry. Don’t see the point of a VM, again from a resource standpoint - but maybe I’m wrong. TrueNAS might be an option albeit using a single disk as backups are already taken care of.
Most likely bare metal linux I’m thinking but I would just appreciate soe pointers from people with more experience to start my journey?
I chose Ubuntu Linux for my i5-10400 server. Because it is a very popular distro, it is very easy to look up detailed help for anything you can imagine. Maybe some other distro is a little faster or cooler, but … I don’t care.
I also installed the desktop version of Ubuntu so the GUI is available if I want it. I’m “wasting” resources and the cool server admins will scold me for having a GUI option, but the Linux Police have not hauled me away yet for my crimes.
I also run Plex on “bare metal,” I do not use Docker.
I added the Plex repo to the system config, and do an update via command line once in a while, and in between updates, it just runs. The system has been 100% trouble free.
I’ll throw in another vote for Ubuntu, and definitely desktop if you’ve only ever used windows.
I’ve run Plex on Windows, Ubuntu, and as a TrueNAS app and I am back to Ubuntu on bare metal for my one server and a Ubuntu VM for the other, both running a desktop GUI for ease of dragging and dropping files when I need to move things around. I use SSH for most other things or the terminal on the desktop.
I used to be indecisive but now I’m not so sure!!!
I think Linux is the way to go - but now that I have made that decision, which Linux? I appreciate that the concensus is Ubuntu but I think I may need to research Linux’s first.
I guess what you are saying is that there can be some benefit installing an Ubuntu developed app on an Ubuntu installation but by the time I have hacked together an installation of Ubuntu, under the hood it might be unrecognisable as Ubuntu - I will take your comment into account!!
It sounds like you might be thinking this is more difficult than it is… it’s very similar to installing and configuring windows, then installing Plex (which is some more steps than on windows). It’s not really hacked together. Googling any of the steps below will yield lots of step by step guides and videos, and using the version of Ubuntu will get you more specific ones just like you would specify Win 10 or Win 11.
Burn an ISO or make a bootable USB with the newest stable Ubuntu desktop version.
Boot to it and go through installer prompts
Once installed and logged in, follow guide to install Plex Media Server
That’s it. You can throw in setting a static IP and setting up directories or network shares for media, but most of that can be done via the GUI and all of that would have guides if you Google what you want to do…
I wrote a how-to for Ubuntu which may help you. Like @NateTheBrewer said … It’s a lot like installing Windows in some ways. You won’t be “hacking together” anything, you will be installing some apps and configuring networking and file sharing settings.
Research distros if you like, but keep this in mind: if you choose a distro that is not very popular because you are seduced by its claims of speed, security, and sexiness … It will be that much harder to get help if something doesn’t work as expected. There is no shame in using a popular and well supported distro where people have already written down every procedure you may need. As a new Linux user, whatever an exotic distro may do better than Ubuntu is unlikely to actually benefit you.
I’m still happily working on this project, I’m a lot more confident with Linux now (still not an expert but getting there) but I have another possibly silly question.
On my Synology NAS, I get a nice graphical ‘state of play’ of the NAS, a resource monitor widget. and it can be accessed not only via the NAS device but from an device on my network.
I’ve had a thought that maybe I could run CasaOS purely for the interface as it is pretty much the resource monitor I’m looking for. I will still run Plex on bare metal Linux as I believe CasaOS are very slow at updating the Plex docker container.
I know there are Linux resource montors and I have looked at one (can’t remember the name, might have been Cockpit) but it wasn’t that great - maybe there are other better ones out there - any ideas?
For quick and dirty monitoring of a single machine, btop is pretty cool. It really makes the most of the terminal… It even supports clicking on things with your mouse, which feels like black magic, haha.
One thing it does not have which would be excellent for Plex is Intel GPU utilization. @ChuckPa can Cockpit do that?
