Question Linux for HTPC?

Oasis Curator

Reputable
Apr 9, 2019
236
7
4,595
Should I look at Linux for my HTPC?

The HTPC runs Plex and that's literally it, so I wouldn't need a fully fledged operating system, just one that I can navigate through folders, copy and paste stuff from external drives and that's it.
I can't get the HTPC to "see" or talk to another Windows PC anyway so that's no loss (but would be great if it and the Windows PC played nicely together) but just thinking of speed of booting into the OS - perhaps the Windows 10 I have on there is just too big (although takes less than a minute to boot into the OS).

I've thought about other HTPC software instead of Plex but Plex just works how I want it to - I didn't get on with Kodi as it wouldn't look like I wanted it to on the screen. Plus, the TV has a Plex app so I can push the HTPC button and then use the app on the TV.

Never experienced Linux before so don't know where to start.

Thanks
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
Can you please state the specs to your HTPC? List the specs like so:
CPU:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS: include version of OS

you can take a look at your OS version by right clicking on Start then left clicking on System, the version should show on the bottom of the new window. As for your motherboard, can you check and see what your BIOS version is? How much space is free from your C(OS) drive? If it's an SSD, do you have more than one partition for the SSD?
 

colin.p

Prominent
May 16, 2021
6
4
515
I ran Plex server for years on a 2009 (bought new in 2010) Dell laptop running whatever the current ubuntu LTS was at the time. It ran great for the most part, but since 18.04 it struggled. The laptop was low end on the hardware side and Plex was getting too bloated and caused the old girl to choke on occasion. If your hardware is fairly robust, then linux would make a very good Plex server.

I have pretty well abandoned Plex as it was starting to use up a rather large amount of space and took a lot of resources, so I went back to using Kodi on all my devices (windows 10, Android, as well as several linux machines).

Plex pretty well works out of the box with regards to everything on the local LAN being able to access the server. However, Kodi can be somewhat difficult to get along with SMB but going to the Kodi forums shows how to straighten that out.

At the moment, I'm using windows 10 as the media server and all devices can access the media shares on an external USB drive, either through the file manager or using Kodi.