READ ME FIRST: About Server ARMv7 and ARMv8 Ubuntu / Debian

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Introduction

Plex supports Debian and Ubuntu based ARMv7 (armhf) and ARMv8 (arm64) distributions.

To view all threads tagged server-linux-arm in the Plex Media Server/NAS & Devices category click here

To view all threads tagged server-linux-arm in the entire forum click here

Manage Expectations

Video transcoding is not recommended at all on ARMv7 and ARMv8 devices. For the best experience, always aim for Direct Play support on all of your devices.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/

OS Installation

It’s out of scope of this text to explain how to install Ubuntu / Debian on your ARMv7 / ARMv8 device. Please see the official manufacturer pages that will always contain the links to most up-to-date tutorials and images.

Most importantly: in 99 % of all cases you will just have to flash the appropriate SD card image and maybe resize the root partition. You will NOT have to prepare a special Plex user, install special cron jobs to reboot your device every night or install some fancy service control service. Please do not listen to most of the tutorials out there. Just finish the basic installation and that’s it.

Here is a growing link list for the most important devices:

Plex Installation

You have to install the Plex Media Server package manually or just enable the package repository. Please read the following document. All Linux (Ubuntu) instructions apply to you. To decide whether you need the ARMv7 or the ARMv8 package, just run this command on your device in a terminal: dpkg --print-architecture and it will tell you, armhf requires the ARMv7 package and arm64 the ARMv8 one.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288586-installation/#toc-1

Initial Web Configuration

To complete the installation please read the section “Opening the Plex Web App on a Device Other than the Server Itself” of the official Plex Linux guide.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288586-installation/#toc-2

Mount USB Drives

To be able to use your media on your USB drives you have to mount these drives with the correct Linux permissions.

First, please read and at least perform all steps in “Mounting a storage device” in the following guide.

Whenever you encounter an error like “Mount is denied because the NTFS volume is already exclusively opened” please unmount your drive first, e.g. with:

sudo umount /dev/sda1

To auto-mount your drive, either also read “Setting up automatic mounting” in above guide or use the graphical app “Disks”.

To be able to use “Disks” please perform these steps:

(1) Update your software-list: sudo apt update

(2) Install Disks: sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility

(3) Start Disks from the main menu

(4) Enable the “Automatic Mount Options” of your partition. Use the settings discussed in “Setting up automatic mounting” in above guide.

Do not change the user of the Plex Media Server to pi or root. Never! Just read the guide and you will learn how to live with the default user plex.

Disable DLNA

There are some unresolved memory issues with the DLNA server support (at least on ARM). Disabling DLNA is currently recommended.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200350536-dlna/

Most other Problems

First read the tutorials in the Linux Tips section before asking general Linux questions here. Remember, your device is just like any other Linux server.

Bug Reports

Please read “Reporting a Linux Bug” and provide the discussed information.

https://forums.plex.tv/t/reporting-a-linux-bug-read-first/101911

Legacy Support and Migration

##### ATTENTION #####
THIS IS THE LAST UPDATE OF THE dev2day.de PACKAGE!!! UPDATE TO THE OFFICIAL PACKAGE NOW!!!

Finally, official ARMv7 and ARMv8 Plex packages are available:
https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/

The migration is simple and your Plex library will be preserved.
First, remove the dev2day.de package:
sudo apt-get remove plexmediaserver-installer

Then, remove the dev2day.de repo, e.g. with:
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pms.list

Now, download the appropriate package from https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/ and put it on your device, e.g.:
wget https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-media-server-new/1.15.3.876-ad6e39743/debian/plexmediaserver_1.15.3.876-ad6e39743_armhf.deb

Finally, install the package, e.g.:
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.15.3.876-ad6e39743_armhf.deb

Also, the official Plex repository is now available:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/235974187-enable-repository-updating-for-supported-linux-server-distributions/

The following thread has more information: https://forums.plex.tv/t/read-me-first-about-server-armv7-and-armv8-ubuntu-debian/226567/

Old setup instructions: https://dev2day.de/plex-media-server-arm/
Old package sources: GitHub - uglymagoo/plexmediaserver-installer: Plex Media Server on ARMv7 and ARMv8 (e.g. Raspberry Pi 2/3)

11 Likes