Not a total linux noob, plenty of experience using them for servers @ work. Less experience with using them with GUIs and for other computing use.
I’ve got an intel nuc i3 that I use as a media pc. It doesn’t do (or need to do) more than allow me to browse files and play videos (mkv, mp4, just the usual fare). I don’t really need or want something like Kodi. I just have the stuff I want to play on my NAS and smb or nfs mount to get at it. Specs aren’t great, but it doesn’t need to run 4k, so it’s been fine. Perhaps I use clementine once in a blue moon to play a few mp3s when hosting a party or dinner. (And I toy around with the IR reader of the nuc so I can make my own media buttons on a programmable remote, but that’s not super important.)
That’s pretty much it.
Currently I run Ubuntu on it, but it takes so long to boot. What are your distro recommendations? Not afraid to tinker, I doubt I’ll ever become an Archlinux user.
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How much work do you want to do?
None - Librelec is already configured for media center usage. Install and use.
Little - Fedora IOT. Set up the system, which has a small core, verify you’ve got the right drivers, plasma bigscreen, your media apps.
Lots - Arch linux. Same thing, set up the small core (manually), then handle drivers, plasma bigscreen, your media apps.
Lots (But I don’t like systemd). Go Void. It’s the same as arch (more or less) but you use runit instead of systemd.
Full Control. Go Gentoo. This is probably overkill here unless you’ve got some kind of restrictions to meet. You know your needs best.
For something like this, I would just run Debian. (Use whatever DE you’re comfortable with)
Mount the NAS share through fstab and install mpv as a media player.
I think this is the way I’m going to go. I think KDE Plasma seems pretty cool, maybe Big Screen it.
If you care at all about HDR support (or in the future) that’s a good DE pick as well. They recently improved support / specification adherence so now mpv works correctly with HDR finally.
Well if you are familiar with servers I’d can’t stop myself from shilling the setup i use, you install mint, then you set up i3 as the window manager, 500mb of ram on idle, I set it up in a 4gb ram laptop and runs beautifully, stable and never breaks too.
I have a super old lenovo nuc that I use for the same purpose. I ended up putting Linux mint with xfce on it and it works great. Not the fastest for sure but def usable
Use Bazzite. It’s unbreakable and comes with lots of easy installable packages. And I say that as a looong-time Debian fan.
But a minimum of 8Gb RAM for a simple media PC seems pretty high. I don’t want bloat – or an OS that requires a discrete GPU. This seems like a good choice for a gaming setup, not a low-spec media file player.
Everyone is going to recommend their distro :P.
My new home is openSUSE tumbleweed. So you can have a stable hybrid server/gaming desktop :)
As long as people say why it’s their favorite, that’s fine. In this case, I believe openSUSE is great for you – but I need a bare-bones media file player that I will use for nothing else, so (for this) I can discard it. ;]
