Linux/Ubuntu for HTPC Server / KODI

[THRobinson]

I tried Ubuntu just over a year ago, and liked it, but when it came to getting help getting my network shares and iR remote working with Kodi, I got nothing from the Kodi forums and since my HTPC is my only source for entertainment, I quickly changed back to Win7x64.

Well, decided to get a small 16/32GB SSD drive as my boot drive for my HTPC, which was recently transferred to a new case that looks great, but my old boot drive really chatters and makes noise so, looking to make it a bit more quiet. The 2x3TB drives are fine, not near as loud.

Figured when I switch drives, I can play around with the SSD to get it working, and when had enough frustration, plug the HDD in and watch a movie at least.

I had an HP iR receiver, and EventGhost on the system, and Kodi which it booted right into. When I tried Ubuntu, I got stumped getting the remote to work, Kodi forum said it was simple but offered no help/advise so gave up and switched to Win7 again.

Before I try again, I was hoping for some advice/help... since I have essentially no Linux experience at all.

I am replacing my HP iR receiver, with a FLIRC Streacom internal iR receiver that says will work on Linux.

I also need to figure out share/permissions....

In my setup I have my main HTPC1... I have a couple HTPC's in the house connected via ethernet, and a tablet on WiFi... as well as my personal PC.

I have the 2x3TB drives shared out to all the other HTPCs as read only. Otherwise, the family would mess stuff up fast.

My PC has full read/write/delete access to the files on HTPC1 because I do all organization on my PC. Making files, renaming, sorting, deleting... so my PC needs full access.

My PC has a Download folder, which is shared only to HTPC1. That way on my HTPC1 I can check/test files before I copy them over and overwrite anything.

The 2x3TB drives in my HTPC1 are fully shared... not a file here or a folder there... the TV drive is full of folders/subfolders for each series/season, the Movie drive has no folders at all, not even a main folder... it's just a formatted drive full of files.

Hopefully that all makes sense.

So what I'm hoping for is....

1 - What would work best? Linux Mint? Ubuntu? OpenElec? LibreElec?
2 - Can I have the same drive share setup I have now cross platforms? Because my PC is Win7x64, other HTPCs are Win7x64.
3 - How much drive space is needed? 16GB? 32GB? 64GB? some cheap and used SSDs on eBay, I don't need anything special, since only running an OS and KODI.
4 - Anyone have experience with FLIRC and knows it works?

Long post I know... just want to gather as much info as I can now before pulling my hair out later.

Also, older motherboard... Running an OS from USB as a pre-test, not really an option, lot of work to make it work and kinda "iffy" when it does.

 

[atljsf]

if you want a problem free linux, ubuntu or mint are really easy to use, mint i like more

about the htpc part, lots of people use a app like kodi or something like that for watch movies and similar content so read lots from their forum is what could make the difference here

for the os, a normal instalaltion usually is 15 or 20gbs, so a 30 gbs partition sounds good to me but i usually make a bigger partition, for my home folder and all in one partition, contrary to multiple partitions for many users approach most people do, so your small ssd sounds very possible and ideal for speed

the ir, well, i have 0 experience with that part but i do use lots of wireless keyboards on linux, a good logitech could give you a better experience depending on what you would like to use in terms of size and simplicity

 

[skittle]

I use libreelec a fork of openelec. All development happens on libreelec. I also use this IR remote.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00224ZDFY/

You can also get the kodi remote app on android/iOS and use that as a remote.

Pretty much everything works out of the box on libreelec and it is designed to just boot off a usb flash drive. 2gb flash drive is enough. It boots from usb then loads the OS into ram.

 

[THRobinson]

Yup Kodi... been using Kodi/XBMC for years now. Sadly, their forums use to be great and helpful, not so much anymore. Half the the time I get 0 response, or when I do, people kinda ignore the OP and immediately jump at throwing money at the problem (upgrade this, buy a different remote, switch to an android box). My setup has worked great for years, I know the setup can work because it does work... just looking to switch the OS because I heard that Linux based systems take fewer resources and maybe runs a bit better.

So, a 32GB SSD drive should do the trick then... for what it is, I'm not blowing a tonne of money on a good drive like my PC has, I'm just looking for a $25 SSD on eBay. Not really for speed... more because my old 250GB drive (although works great) is loud, and because of the case setup, the back of the HDD faces the front bezel so the sound really echoes through. Plus 250GB for an OS and Kodi is overkill in size. Rather use it as an external backup drive for the 250GB SSD on my main PC.

iR wise... nope... no logitech, no Rii, no anything other than my Sony universal TV remote. Which again, works under my current setup so, should work under Linux, just no idea how. The FLIRC though, has a Linux app and from what I gather, you map the iR signals and it saves the iR signal codes to the FLIRC itself, like flashing a BIOS or something.... where as with my HP receiver, it grabs the signal from the remote but I need eventghost to tell Kodi what to do with it. In theory it should work better/easier, but again, I have 0 Linux experience.

Reason I switched to the FLIRC though was because the tiny computer board has a couple of ports/hubs... plug the internal USB into the board for power, and then you plug the motherboard's Power On switch into the board, and from the board into your PC case. That way, you can use your iR remote to turn on the computer.

Again, I tried once before a while back with Ubuntu, which was a nice looking OS, and I got Kodi installed and running no problems, and I could watch movies etc... but I couldn't figure out the shares/permissions, and although the Kodi forum kept telling me it was easy to get the remote to work, when asked, no one was able to tell me how.

 

[THRobinson]

I use libreelec a fork of openelec. All development happens on libreelec. I also use this IR remote.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00224ZDFY/

You can also get the kodi remote app on android/iOS and use that as a remote.

Pretty much everything works out of the box on libreelec and it is designed to just boot off a usb flash drive. 2gb flash drive is enough. It boots from usb then loads the OS into ram.

I was looking into LibreElec actually, on their forum now... I know it's a stripped down version of the OS, I think their tagline is 'Just enough OS for Kodi' but nothing helpful so far response wise on how to get the share/permissions to work. If I can't get it to work with my Sony remote and the file sharing setup like I have now... forget it. Could be the best OS in the world but it's useless for my setup.

Reason I push the Sony, is that I have a Sony TV and a Sony Soundbar that use the same remote... I loathe having more than 1 remote so, want it to work with what I have. Which it does now... under Win7.

 

[skittle]

You can use windows/samba shares or linux/NFS shares or UPNP shares. Samba shares are enabled in the kodi gui or you can edit the settings via ssh. It's all pretty easy to get configured.

You don't say what shares you have...

Idk about your particular remote but just plug it in with libreelec and see if it works. If not then you just set up a custom profile for the remote, you will need to find the key codes for lircd to work with your remote.

Start reading here
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LIRC

 

[THRobinson]

You can use windows/samba shares or linux/NFS shares or UPNP shares. Samba shares are enabled in the kodi gui or you can edit the settings via ssh. It's all pretty easy to get configured.

You don't say what shares you have...

I thought I did in the OP.... I have my main HTPC, my Win7PC, and 2-3 other HTPCs/Tablets running Kodi.

- I need full read/write/delete access to the 2x3TB drives on my HTPC from my Win7PC
- I need read access on the HTPC to a folder on my Win7PC
- All other HTPCs/Tablets need read-only access to the 2x3TB drives on the HTPC

The 2x3TB drives need to be drive access... I don't have a folder on the drive with files in it for the Movies drive, it's just a drive, no folders, just files. The other 3TB drive is for TV series, so lots of folders/subfolders for each series/season. But again, no main folder with everything in it... so needs to be drive access.

On my HTPC/Win7PC's... the drives show up as mapped network drives, X:\ and Z:\... also a Y:\ for music but I'm moving that to my Win7PC since I don't listen to music on the media centre.

 

[skittle]

That's all easy to configure via the samba configuration file. Maybe slightly different for libreelec but start here.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/samba
Like I said you can access via samba/windows share, nfs, sftp... very easy.

 

[THRobinson]

Weird that it uses a file... Windows was all left/right mouse clicks and check marks.

+1 point for Windows.

 

[skittle]

Kodi/libreelec/openelec has a samba browser so if your computer is discoverable on the network then you can browse/mount the network file share without modifying files.

that said: Everything in linux uses plain text configuration files. It is actually much easier than windows. Really there are like 20 different menus for setting up shares in windows. Samba config (and all other config) is one file that you edit with notepad or similar text editor and very option is well documented unlike windows.

in general for autoatic mounting of filesystems (in particular samba) you modify the file /etc/fstab and add this one line (modify it to your needs..)
//SERVER/sharename /mnt/mountpoint cifs username=myuser,password=mypass 0 0

pretty easy...

 

[THRobinson]

Figured would be harder, but looking at an example online, doesn't seem too bad... and probably easier to backup/restore a txt file if I ever have to wipe the drive, than to sit there getting the share working again. Thanks for the help... hopefully try it soon.

Plan is to pull the 250GB HDD I have and replace with a small SSD and setup what I need on there... that way I can put the HDD back in if I want to take a break and watch TV.

But, no SSD yet, few eBay auctions end in 26h so waiting to see how those go. I know you can run this stuff off USB but my board is a bit older, and to get USB booting to work is a real pain, need to go into the BIOS with that USB stick plugged in so you can enable it as a boot device, and if you change the name of the USB or use a different one, it won't work etc... I think my motherboard was right before USB booting got popular.

 

[skittle]

Maybe also consider getting a raspberrypi and And small sd card instead. Libreelec distributes raspberrypi images as well.

 

[atljsf]

that approach has several points in his favor, no fans, no noise, no moving parts

low power consumption, small and simple and has a ethernet port

it is of course cheaper to keep what you have but this idea is also very interesting

 

[Alabalcho]

Weird that it uses a file... Windows was all left/right mouse clicks and check marks.

On Linux, WebMin is popular way to remotely configure / manage Linux box thru a browser. I haven't check how to add it to openelec/librelec distros, but on standard Ubuntu it is relatively easy.

 

[THRobinson]

Maybe also consider getting a raspberrypi and And small sd card instead. Libreelec distributes raspberrypi images as well.

I have a RaspberryPi actually but the case is too small to fit 2x3TB drives into.

Everyone on every forum at some point suggests the same thing... but as mentioned, I just bought a new case, and the HTPC is a server with 2x3TB drives in it. I don't want my nice TV, sound system and TV stand cluttered up with external drives, a RaspPi and a bunch of wires.

Seriously though, I do have a RaspPi, was excited to get it and pop it together and install RetroPie on it for old NES games and such, but was a sad case of memory vs reality... got the games on, tried to play them, didn't enjoy them near as much as I use to. Thing sits on my desk gathering dust now. :S

 

[THRobinson]

Weird that it uses a file... Windows was all left/right mouse clicks and check marks.

On Linux, WebMin is popular way to remotely configure / manage Linux box thru a browser. I haven't check how to add it to openelec/librelec distros, but on standard Ubuntu it is relatively easy.

Well, on the LibreElec forum, I finally had a helpful response. Someone posted saying it's not really meant for setting up sharing and such and for the main HTPC, it's probably best to run a full version of the OS like Linux Mint or Ubuntu, and use OpenElec/LibreElec on the remote HTPCs instead.

I'm getting a cheap 32GB SSD drive for the main HTPC... $20, be a bit faster/quieter... when it comes I'll give the setup a try and let you guys know how it went... or... I'll be back looking for more help.

 

[skittle]

There is no difference between running samba server (windows shares) on Ubuntu or libreelec...

 

[THRobinson]

Decided to give OpenElec a try now that my SSD drive FINALLY arrived (8-15 days my butt).

I was able to, on my Win7 PC, map network drives no issues to the OpenElec 2x3TB drives.

I am still unable to, on OpenElec, add my one folder on the Win7 system... keeps asking for a username/password. System has a username, no password but OpenElec/Kodi doesn't seem to let me add it with the password field blank.