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?

  • @nbafantestEnglish
    2•10 months ago

    Ah yeah, i know what you mean. That can be overwhelming. There are a loooooot of choices, and the differences might be things I’ve never even heard of before.

    I think a lot of these articles are written with the expectation that you will try several different versions after you learn to flash/boot. I think i ended up with 4 different forks i could boot from.

    When I started, i went with Ubuntu first just because it seemed pretty stable and had support from a large company, but once I leanred how to boot Ubuntu it was easy to do the same steps for the other versions to try them out.

    • Fashtas 🇦🇺OPEnglish
      1•10 months ago

      I actually went back and had a look at a few of the top results and I have a feeling a lot were AI written Sandtraps. Several were very similar "Install your favorite Linux then "

      Makes it had for a newbie who doesn’t know what they don’t know so can’t ask the right question.

      The Mint install works fine now, I made a lot of mistakes and took a while to get head around the folder structure and permissions but once I am more comfortable next time I’ll try something a little more headless I think, though playing around I reckon I’d be happy with Mint as a daily machine (if only my job wasn’t coding Windows apps :/)