I want to set up plex server, no windows.. any simple options?

Fashtas 🇦🇺@aussie.zone to Selfhosted@lemmy.world – 18 points –

My wife consumes whatever media I throw at our Plex server and I'd like to stick with it (The tv's + set top boxes/remote controls are all easy for her to use and stream Plex fine)

I'd grabbed an old work PC I replaced years ago, Windows 10, and tossed a Plex server on it and it's worked for a long time but recently despite being used for NOTHING but Plex, its bloated itself like most Windows machines and I found Cortana taking 90% CPU (despite being disabled via registry) and some updates failing over and over.

I'd like to replace it (the software) but really no idea where to start, even the most helpful sites are just "use your favorite Unix then install Plex" or "Here are 56 perfect versions of Unix to install for your Plex server"

Honestly I use it for nothing except Plex, is there something easy enough I could look at?

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The simplest solution would be to install Debian. The thing to note is that the Debian installer is designed to be multipurpose so it will default to installing a GUI.

Assuming you can boot off of a live USB with the Debian installer, you can follow the steps until you get to tasksel software selection from there uncheck gnome and check system utilities and ssh server. Also Debian defaults to separate root and user accounts. I would recommend disabling root (see steps below)

On a different machine, ssh into the server (I'm using debian.local but you should replace that with a hostname or IP)

ssh username@debian.local

Once you have access run the following commands to switch to root.

su -

Install sudo and give yourself access

sudo apt update
sudo apt install sudo
sudo usermod -aG sudo username

Now type exit twice to exit the shell entirely. Once that's done log back in.

ssh username@debian.local

Lock root

sudo passwd -l root

Now you have a system to set things up. I would start by enabling automatic updates and installing docker compose. (Docker compose allows you to deploy software very quickly in co trainers via a yaml spec)

#enable automatic updates
sudo apt install unattended-upgrades
sudo dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades
sudo systemctl start unattended-upgrades #probably not needed

#install updates and install docker and docker-compose

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade 
sudo apt install docker.io docker-compose
sudo systemctl start docker
sudo usermod -aG docker username

You will need to log out and then back in to apply the docker permission.

I hope that gets you started.

Thanks, I decided to see what happened with a Mint Install (Before I saw your reply) so as a Toe-in-water thing to learn more about the OS and see what stuff was like. I only Kitty into a Linux server for work and do some basic tasks on it occasionally so was interested.

An ... interesting experience... trivial install, easy enough to understand the UI, entirely failed to get a Plex server working though... Nothing on the network can see it (Local works fine) which doesn't make much difference because Plex has nothing to server since it can't see the folder with movies on it due to, I believe, ownership issues (The files are on a portable USB drive)

Still fiddling but most help documents descend into arcane command line arguments very quickly and are generally "wrong" in that they suggest editing files that don't exist in folders that aren't there.

Still.. a learning experience :) (Easy enough to kill it and tried Debian if I can't work out chown!

Hah! Apparently in the long list of UFW commands I was running, the first one didn't run or I missed it, can see the server now at least, just need it to see the files!
Entertaining but the wife is getting impatient :/

Just a disclaimer I have never used Plex has I use Jellyfin.

For your firewall mint has a GUI for it. I'm not sure why your firewall is even turned on as it should be off by default.