Plex HTPC on Linux - does it support auto HDR switching and HD audio?

Plex Players Desktop Players
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Hello, I am using Windows 11 for a Plex HTPC, and have some annoying bugs that I can’t fix. The two main ones are the intermittent loss of audio when skipping back and forward through video, and a black screen after an HDR video stops, and the system auto switches back to SDR.

I can usually recover if I switch the AVR to a different input and then switch it back. But, the issues are not present at all in Kodi, so difficult to know if it is software or hardware.

I was thinking of trying to replace Windows 11 with Linux, to see if that would improve things. I have never used Linux before so it will be an adventure, but I just want to check that Linux will do everything I need it to do, mainly, as subject line says, auto HDR switching, and HD audio, and auto refresh rate changing. I have an Intel Arc A380 GPU in the system.

Also, which version of Linux for an absolute beginner - Ubuntu desktop?

Thanks in advance for any guidance!

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The answer to this one is a hard no and likely won’t change anytime soon.

Linux is quite hostile to the beginner. It has gotten better over the decades but it’s far from friendly to the beginner. The Linux community keeps hoping that the next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop (meaning that it’ll be easy to setup/use) but it keeps manifesting as not much more than a hope. I’d recommend that you only try out Linux if you are willing to invest a tremendous amount of time leaning about and fixing issues you encounter. A rather infamous quote: “Linux is only free if your time isn’t worth anything.”

As per which distro, that’s a battlefield I’d rather not enter.

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Thanks, I appreciate the response.

As an update, I have fixed the issue with the HTPC by getting a Display Port to HDMI adapter that supports 4k / 120hz and I am connecting my GPU via that port to the AVR, rather than via it’s HDMI port, and voila, everything just works. I can also set 4k / 50hz / 10 bit / RGB via this port, which I couldn’t achieve from the HDMI port.

So, that’s good news.

I did give Linux a go to update my server from Windows 10, but you are absolutely right, it was a nightmare. The install went well, but I gave up on trying to get network folder shares to work, so went with Windows 11 instead.

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