Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 14, 2017 Supervisor Share Posted December 14, 2017 Hi guys, I've got a Dell laptop with 2GB RAM and I'm looking to optimize it from using Lubuntu which seems to crash every 24 hours. I figure it comes from the OS rather than the files (although I appreciate it could be Plex,) so I'm looking for something that won't crap out every night. Suggestions? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted December 14, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted December 14, 2017 Do you know what is crashing from? I know you said it "could be plex", but do you know for sure? I'm suprised that Lubuntu would do that. What version are you using? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598132518 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Veteran Posted December 14, 2017 Veteran Share Posted December 14, 2017 I use Debian for my home server. It's been up since the last power outage 10 months ago. satukoro, Nick H. and +Nik Louch 3 Share Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598132522 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Elі Subscriber² Posted December 14, 2017 Subscriber² Share Posted December 14, 2017 I have been running my Plex server on Linux Deepin for quite a while and it's been rock solid. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598132526 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 15, 2017 Author Supervisor Share Posted December 15, 2017 I'll give Debian a whirl and see what the uptime is like. To clarify, Lubuntu seems to forget that the hardware has a WiFi card every now and again, and it also rockets to 100% CPU and stays there even when you've finished a task. Rebooting resolves these situations, but I'm looking for stability. A reinstallation of Lubuntu doesn't seem to change things. Maybe it is the hardware? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598132644 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue-Vision Posted December 15, 2017 Share Posted December 15, 2017 (edited) Lubuntu is quite a different spin from regular Ubuntu. Stuff that Ubuntu does, Lubuntu will be looking at ya like "huh?!" ... Debian would probably be the way to go here. More hands-on, but once it's set, it's set. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598132722 Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunarx3dfx Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 If it's just going to be a Plex server, I'd recommend installing Ubuntu server followed by Plex. There's no need for the extra overhead from a GUI, etc. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598135140 Share on other sites More sharing options...
TFindley Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 Ubuntu Server 16.04 on both of mine, and again on a friends that I support (using a private reprepro to manage the plex server updates). All three servers are really reliable. Uptime is usually never more than a month as I reboot them regularly for kernel updates. They never crash or fail on me though. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598135148 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 18, 2017 Author Supervisor Share Posted December 18, 2017 I'm having a bit of a headache getting Plex to see the files on the External HDD using Debian. I had this with Lubuntu and it ended up being a permissions issue. That was easy to fix with Lubuntu but with Debian it is proving more challenging insofar as regardless of what I try Plex still can't access the drive. It sees it but it can't see the subfolders. Suggestions? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598135156 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue-Vision Posted December 18, 2017 Share Posted December 18, 2017 You'll have to chown (change owner) on that drive plus all subfolders to the user account in question. I forget the exact commandline usage but if you do a chown --help it'll tell you the switches and what they do. Then you might need do a 'usershare owner only = no' in samba.conf ... Hope that fixes it. I've never had to do anything with plex so I dunno. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598135474 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 18, 2017 Author Supervisor Share Posted December 18, 2017 On 18/12/2017 at 21:14, Unobscured Vision said: You'll have to chown (change owner) on that drive plus all subfolders to the user account in question. I forget the exact commandline usage but if you do a chown --help it'll tell you the switches and what they do. Then you might need do a 'usershare owner only = no' in samba.conf ... Hope that fixes it. I've never had to do anything with plex so I dunno. Expand I've tried the first part (chown) and I'm still getting the same problem. I'll look in to changing the ownership of the drive. What is gpasswd about? Group Password, changing the user to share the permissions of whoever you select? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598135602 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue-Vision Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 gpasswd is used for network-enabled shares and group/user storage quotas, iirc. Same as usershare but looks at the group level for remote access. Might be handy for something else but on the system that the drive is physically located at it you shouldn't be running into a problem with this. Sounds like the permissions on the drive are well and truly messed up. Nick H. 1 Share Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598135678 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 19, 2017 Author Supervisor Share Posted December 19, 2017 On 19/12/2017 at 00:53, Unobscured Vision said: gpasswd is used for network-enabled shares and group/user storage quotas, iirc. Same as usershare but looks at the group level for remote access. Might be handy for something else but on the system that the drive is physically located at it you shouldn't be running into a problem with this. Sounds like the permissions on the drive are well and truly messed up. Expand Thanks for the information. I'm still struggling. I'm able to mount the drive and I installed VLC to test if the system can read the files and it can play them without an issue, so I assume the problem is with the read abilities of Plex? I'm starting to think the easiest option would be to backup the data and format the drive to a Linux-friendly filesystem...that would take a while to do. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598136096 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue-Vision Posted December 19, 2017 Share Posted December 19, 2017 It shouldn't have made a difference. Ext4, NTFS, etc are all pretty much the same as far as a network mount are concerned. This one is starting to bug me now lol ... Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598136742 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Global Moderator Posted December 20, 2017 Global Moderator Share Posted December 20, 2017 Better get back on Linux, @Unobscured Vision! Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598136748 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 21, 2017 Author Supervisor Share Posted December 21, 2017 I'm getting fed up with this now. I've moved all the data off the drive, formatted it to Ext4 and am now transferring the data back on to the disk. It's going to take about 12 hours before all the data is back, but I've just done a test by opening Plex and trying to navigate to the drive and it still doesn't see any folders! I'm going to wait until the transfer is complete to confirm, but now the only thing I can think of is that I need to modify Plex's permissions somehow (something I have already looked in to before wiping the drive). Let's wait and see. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598138468 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted December 21, 2017 MVC Share Posted December 21, 2017 On 15/12/2017 at 01:43, Nick H. said: Lubuntu seems to forget that the hardware has a WiFi card every now and again Expand Your serving up your plex via wifi to your network? Why? Do you carry your plex server around with you.. Talk about crap performance.. If your clients are wifi ok sure watching a movie on your tablet, etc. Are you clients wired? wifi to wifi is horrible since you auto /2 the available bandwidth because wifi is shared and your devices talking are on the same wifi.. Are you running server on 2.4 band while clients are 5 band? So your clients and server not sharing the same limited bandwidth. On 21/12/2017 at 10:22, Nick H. said: It's going to take about 12 hours before all the data is back Expand How much data - are you moving over wifi? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598138484 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted December 21, 2017 Author Supervisor Share Posted December 21, 2017 On 21/12/2017 at 10:58, BudMan said: Your serving up your plex via wifi to your network? Why? Do you carry your plex server around with you.. Talk about crap performance.. If your clients are wifi ok sure watching a movie on your tablet, etc. Are you clients wired? wifi to wifi is horrible since you auto /2 the available bandwidth because wifi is shared and your devices talking are on the same wifi.. Are you running server on 2.4 band while clients are 5 band? So your clients and server not sharing the same limited bandwidth. How much data - are you moving over wifi? Expand Yeah, I realised my mistake with the wifi card - it's not needed. But I realised that after I had installed Debian. As for the transfer, I'm copying about 1.5TB of information via USB. Given the age of the laptop though it's only transferring at 23MB/s. Debian is telling me it should be done in about...9 hours now. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598138488 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick H. Supervisor Posted January 7, 2018 Author Supervisor Share Posted January 7, 2018 So I decided to do a test: what happens if I use the Windows serial key and temporarily install Windows 7 and install Plex? Will it give me access to the files? Yes. Yes it will. No issues. I'm now fuming. This makes no sense! To recap on the situation: I have installed multiple distributions of Linux: Debian, Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Fedora, FreeNAS, RaspberryPi, Kali, Tails (because why not at this point?). All distributions recognise the external HDD, but Plex cannot see the contents of the drive. My user account (via any Linux distro) can access and run the media via other applications (i.e. VLC) without an issue. I have run permissions commands to give Plex the same access as my user account. I have removed the media from the drive, formatted the drive from NTFS to EXT4, put the media back and I get the same issue. I may be missing a point or two at this stage; it's been a couple of months of trying various ideas on this task. But I just don't get it. Why the heck is Plex not seeing my files on my external HDD?! I need to go to bed, but any helpful input would be appreciated. If I read another "tutorial" I might throw the machine in to the garden and leave it for the birds. NB: I'll happily use any Linux distribution that has a long-standing uptime and little overhead. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598153326 Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted January 7, 2018 MVC Share Posted January 7, 2018 because plex doesn't like symlinks? How are you mounting it? And when you say plex doesn't see it - you mean you have it say mounted to /mnt/drive/ with a folder called movies in there And your trying to add the library of movies? Lets see your permissions? all the way down the tree... Plex is running as plex and what permissions and owners are on the folder? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1350938-plex-server-with-a-linux-distribution-which-distribution/#findComment-598153572 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts