Be Excellent To Each Other

I have an ancient PC that's been sat in the loft doing nothing. I've no idea what's in it, but it was last upgraded about 8 years ago, so it might not even be up to the task.

My theory is that it can sit in the corner and act as a Plex server (both for media on itself and on the NAS), but it's old and loud (although not as loud as I'd have thought), and I don't really want my energy bills to skyrocket because it's on 24/7 on the off-chance we want to watch a couple of episodes of something in the evening.

So... I figured that as long as it would switch on fairly quick, that wouldn't be an issue, but it doesn't (no SSD and Windows 7), so I had a potential brainwave of Linux on a USB stick. However, my Linux knowledge is next to nothing, so I'm a bit stumped.

First of all, is this even likely to work? I seem to be struggling to find an installation of Linux that boots nice and quickly. Is there one?
Assuming I get through that point, I've got an installation of Linux, with a Plex server running, but I can't actually get Plex to see any of the (NTFS) drives that are in the PC (although I can see them outside of Plex). Getting to media on the NAS is a whole other issue, but one step at a time.

This is all an incredibly elaborate solution to a problem that would probably be easier solved by just plugging my laptop into the network when we watch something, but this sounds like a much better use of my time so I'm open to suggestions.

tldr - What's the fastest possible thing I can install to a USB stick that will get from Off to Plex server running (so it obviously has to be something that I can write to)?
How can I make Plex see my hard drives?
Someone please talk me through fstab so I can mount network shares.

For anyone that saw this pre-edit, don't worry, I don't want to try and use my recycled piss to power a plex server.

How old? How shit?

How fast does the Windows install wake up from sleep mode?

You really need a Plex Media server install first, once installed you can launch it and set up library's.

You just point the system to where your media is and it should find it. After this it will scan in all the box art and other stuff, you can then start watching things from other devices by installing the Plex apps.

I would stay away from Windows 7\10 on the PC you describe and maybe try Ubuntu that has a desktop environment very similar to Windows and you probably could install Plex easily without any console needed. Ubuntu will be a lot lighter resource wise that the newer Windows OS.

I have Plex running on a NAS with a Quad Core Xeon and 4GB of RAM, I will be upgrading the RAM soon as I'm finding its not enough sometimes and Plex locks up when doing library updates.

Other think worth looking at is OPEC ECLEC, its a Kodi media centre but nice and light and can be installed from a USB stick.

Ubuntu is probably the least-friction answer here. You might need quite a big USB stick; I think Plex libraries can get quite large as they cache a lot of metadata like thumbnails. You've nothing to lose but some time by giving it a go, though.


Assuming your network shares are SMB (ie. Windows) protocol, which they probably are, do this: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently

Well, that's this one solved, might as well close the thread.


That's the exact guide I used when I set up Plex on an Ubuntu server.

Of course, it didn't work, for some reason that Linux decided to keep secret from me.

This reminds me of this

It'll be because you're a luser HTH HAND

I tried that stuff. Doesn't work even with a clean shower. Still have to clean exactly the same amount.

No one person can hold all the Linux knowledge. It must be stored in a hive of bearded minds.

For clarity, I'm already running a plex server (from my laptop), so I am vaguely aware of how it works.

I get the feeling that getting it up and running on Windows first might at least give me some indication of whether the pc is up to the job.

I've got a 16gig usb stick lying around, although whatever version of ubuntu I tried first didn't seem to boot particularly swiftly.

I've been using Linux for eleven years.

So you're quite right.

I think it's the one I tried as well. Linux has never agreed with me.

Hmmm, I think I first installed Linux in... 1998 or so? Blimey, that's a long time ago. I might have installed Linux before I installed Win95, thinking about it.

This wasn't meant to turn into a "we're all old, how depressing" thread.

2001 for me. I think it was the last time I installed it, too.

Every thread can be that thread if you only believe in yourself.

/strokes beard

I used SUNos , VMS and PRIMOS at college in 91 , I definitely had some flavors of UNIX running on my home machine before Win95 was released (although most of the time just used DOS)

Just did a quick install on my Windows 10 PC (my main one is installed on my NAS)

When it came to library folder options it showed my all the local drives in my PC

I then mapped a drive (W: in this case) on my PC to my NAS and as you can see it appears in the list

So If I understand what you have, a server on a laptop and drives with media on your network? If that's the case then map drives on your laptop and they should appear in the library set up

I would guess that an Ubuntu install would be pretty much the same thing, but never used in on that OS myself.

The beex recommendation machine is in full working order.

This makes no sense. A shower is constantly exposed to clean, running water and detergent. You shouldn't need to clean it.

When you get out of your shower, you're the cleanest thing in your house. Your towel gets cleaner every time you touch it! That's why I never wash towels.

It's also why I don't shower, I just rub myself on other people at the bus stop in the morning.

That's not the reason you rub yourself on other people at the bus stop in the morning.

FTFY

Wait, we didn't really turn Cras into a cat at the Co77age? On my phone, I have pictures of Cras, then some pictures of cats. I thought we turned him into a cat.

I...

You turned Gaywood into a dog once ALL weekend, which was weird.

Are we on the home brew again Mali?

Umm

Dogwood!

And yet he still wouldn't stop humping everyones legs.

Apologies for being on topic, but apparently the answer to this is "very quickly"
I shall investigate further when I have time.

How hard is your water? Down here it's like liquid limescale and everything ends up covered in it.

I'm right in narrowing this down to the issue still being that your drives aren't visible to the plex daemon, right? But they are visible if browsed from the device filesystem?

Can you try mounting a couple of USB drives, one FAT32 one NTFS, to see if the issue could be related to the formatting?

Have you checked to see if your NAS can run Plex?

Only if he uses Linux, I think.

I can only see the local drives\shares when creating a library on my Plex running on a Thecus.

Do you have it running on another NAS and does that allow you access to other network shares?

Correct. I'm not anticipating any issues with windows. In theory all my problems are now resolved, although I may be back.

The NAS isn't on the compatibility list, so I guess I can't install plex on it.

Keep going...

So, I know you're all dying for an update.

After spending ages installing about 3 years worth of windows updates, and uninstalling all the needless software that was still on there, I finally have a pc that appears to be a bit more capable of running a plex server than my laptop, although there are a few logistical issues in terms of how do I get stuff on there/refresh the library when new stuff goes on the NAS, but that's something I might not have to worry about any more, because...

Having declared it "suitable for use", I collected up the mouse, keyboard and monitor to go and dump back in the loft, and pretty much no sooner had I done that, then the PC refuses to turn on.
Initially it went through a phase of just power cycling itself every few seconds, although it then went to permanently on, but the inability to remote into it and occasionally flashing dvd lights suggested it was still resetting all the time, just not switching itself off and on between reboots.
I've dragged everything back downstairs and plugged them in, but apparently it's not even posting anymore, and annoyingly, the stupid splash screen that it puts up to hide all the technical stuff refuses to go away, even when I bash the relevant keys.

I'm guessing I need to start pulling bits out of it, but I'm not sure how bothered I can be and might just dump it back in the loft...

Exciting Update - Pulling all but one stick of ram means it now actually boots again. Time to find the culprit.

Just a note on Plex they have released Plex Cloud which is free if you have a Plex Pass.

So you can now stream\play stuff that's stored on Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive (personal).

Once you choose you cloud storage provider set up is the same as normal choose the type library, point it at the folders and wait for it to finish.

I set my Onedrive pictures up as a library then just reliased how pointless that was at they are already in OneDrive for which I have clients all over the place to view them on

Anyone that uses Plex Cloud is going to end up with their storage shut down in short order, I suspect.

Home movies and photos should be safe. The rest... not so much