A little back story. Having issues with Windows 10 1903. It has me pissed the F off. Then my Plex server running Windows 10 as well decided to restart in the middle of it recording a show. Needless to say to hell with Microsoft and Microsoft’s bull ■■■■. Because my Plex server has become mission critical, as in all 3 of us in the house use it for Live TV/DVR and it helps keep use with in Comcast’s 1 TB cap I need it to be more reliable then what Windows 10 can do. All my media is stored on a Qnap NAS unit. All devices are connected via Ethernet. The NAS is connected directly to the router, the Server and HD Homerun is connected to a switch that is directly connected to the router.
What I need to Know
What distro do I need to use?
Whats the best way to configure the server?
For the record my current Plex Server is running on a Lenovo Y50-70 Laptop
CPU: Intel i7 4700HQ
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX860M
RAM: 16 Gb
Storage: 1 TB SSHD
HD Homerun 4 tuners
Media stored on QNap NAS
Want to make this clear. I have used Linux in the past. The first computer my family ever had was MSDOS and Windows 3.11, Im NOT scared of the command line. I just need a guide, as I can read and follow instructions.
If this is your first trip into Linux: Ubuntu is for you. It is the most Windows-user friendly of them all. You will need to master the command line so fear not, your fingers will get dirty at some point
Like I said I have used Linux in the past. Hell I even taken some Unix admin courses once upon a time. I was thinking Ubuntu, is there a good guide on how to set up Plex? Also I hear about these things called “Containers” are they helpful?
The new Debian (10) has tons of problems still. I don’t recommend it yet because I’m the guy solving problems for it. I will reevaluate after the first suite of updates.
Regarding Debian vs Ubuntu:
Both are the same core.
Ubuntu has all the helper tools and is more tuned for Windows converts.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but do you mean with Plex or in general? I run Stretch on my server but just installed Buster on my desktop. Everything has been smooth sailing so far for me.
I poked the Plex Gods with that statement. I literally crashed my Ubuntu Plex Server tonight just trying to play something back remotely, and it won’t even let me SSH into the box to recover it. And I’m out of town. That’s what I get for saying anything!
I run Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS with a GUI for PMS. It works flawlessly on a NUC8i7HVK and will HW transcode even 4K HEVC HDR10 without any issues. If you need 10Gbps for any reason, connect an Akito T3-10G or a QNAP USB 3.2 Gen 1 network adapter on it for >1Gbps. Put a Samsung NVMe M.2 SSD into it for the OS and the Plex DB and 32/64GB ram and set the transcoder directory to /dev/shm to avoid write endurance wear on the SSD.
Not only can I not ssh in, it’s no longer pingable! This is the one area where using a Linux box backfires on me: I’m way more practiced troubleshooting a Windows box. But that won’t matter until I can physically reach the server again…
ChuckPA’s statement is spot on. I’ve had hosts crash/hang completely, and still have the NICs respond to ICMP requests. You may have something else helping you out…
