OS for HTPC? Linux/Windows/etc??

[TheGreatAus]

Hi there! I have an HTPC that recent acquired a virus and I don't want to put Windows back on my machine, which leaves some other OS to toy with. I don't game at all on it, and I have some movies on some hard drives that will be attached to the HTPC in the form of an HDD drive. I do stream a lot of HBO/Netflix/Amazon, but it's almost all browser based with a keyboard/mouse which I have no problem using. I do use VLC to watch various TV shows, but that's about all I do with it.

I've found a couple other forums that discuss this topic, but most seem to deal with servers and other topics. I see lots of other discussions revolving around these OSs, but I have very little experience with any other OS, other than when I used redhat linux in grad school for some instrumentation that I used and thought it was actually kinda awesome, but I've come to understand that Linux bases OS tend to have issues with drivers and such for things like video cards, etc.

So...what's the best OS for browser based media watching? Or a couple of local movies on a hard drive on the PC? OpenELEC? Redhat? Ubuntu? Kodi? PLEX? Or even Steam??? Or do I bite the bullet for one of the Windows (7/8.1/10)??

Any and all thoughts are welcome! Thanks!

 

[dexxterlab97]

Ubuntu is a nice operating system and is free. VLC does support for Ubuntu and I have been using it so it looks really nice. Driver issues could be a problem but in most case it should have support by now.

 

[azaran]

I use Plex and love it, but I'm running it on Windows systems. If you don't want to deal with driver issues, Windows is of course the easiest route. If you don't mind the hustle and bustle of getting stuff to work with the OS, Unbuntu is a very user friendly distro to play with.

 

[dexxterlab97]

You can stream with VLC. Plex is also available for Ubuntu

 

[bitwright]

Kodi maintains a variant of Ubuntu called Kodibuntu. You might want to try that if you are familiar or interested in kodi.

 

[TheGreatAus]

Im not really familiar with any Linux based systems except for using Redhat on some computers that ran an NMR in grad school. I want to use this opportunity to try to learn non-windows based systems though

 

[dexxterlab97]

Ubuntu is very user-friendly. There are plenty of guides/support out there in case you get into trouble.

 

[TheGreatAus]

Ok...so I picked Ubuntu and put it on last week. It works great for Youtube and most other videos. However, you try to watch Hulu/HBOGo, and it's a no go. It just sits there at a black screen. I tried various solutions, like these:

https://www.maketecheasier.com/watch-hbo-now-ubuntu/ - gives a nice write-up and how to in order to get firefox working using pipeline and a Flash version for windows (I think).

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2015/09/how-to-watch-hulu-on-ubuntu-1404-up - talks about updating HAL and some other digital rights stuff (DRM), very similar to this one: http://www.howtogeek.com/239682/how-to-watch-hulu-on-ubuntu-and-other-linux-distributions/

Apparently I'm not the only one having this issue though: http://www.howtogeek.com/239682/how-to-watch-hulu-on-ubuntu-and-other-linux-distributions/ . I read in a comment somewhere that this issue could be an issue with some of the fonts in pipeline and that causes all the playback button issues, or something to that affect, but I don't know.

Should I downgrade 16.04 LTS to the 14 LTS? Or have places like HBO updated their system and downgrading to use existing solutions won't work? Just wondering! I'd like to get it up and running and maybe help some other people out with similar issues.