I’m looking to replace my Rock 5B running Android TV (the OS jank has finally gotten to me) with an x64 Linux HTPC coupled with an Rii remote.
What distro would one recommend for a “Jellyfin native” client setup? I’ve run Kodi with the Jellyfin plugins before and not been a fan of the experience.
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Finding a good client is hard. Folks recommend the Nvidia Shield Pro. Finding something that plays all the formats and can pass audio through hdmi to a AV receiver. Umcompressed HD audio, HDR/10/DolbyVision. Etc.
If I can just pop a debian machine down, that is great, but a hardware guide would be nice to see.
Debian! I have a Plex server on Debian and it’s been nice and stable. I stream 4k to two tvs at my house at once. Works well.
That sounds like the server side, but what about the client side?
the only difference is you install a desktop environment on desktop debian imo
Linux Mint Debian Edition if you find Debian itself too intimidating.
I’ve been using fedora on a small intel 6th gen or newer mini pc. I then cook up some custom launch scripts that cause JMP to run at login. I use cockpit and a CMK agent for remote monitoring and management.
I got sick of the lack certificate management on Android TV and how much you need to do to make it reasonably private.
If you are on the latest mesa drivers (hence fedora over a more LTS release), and you install Jellfin Media Player via flatpak, everything should just work with hardware decoding.
Thanks for the Fedora nod. I’m looking in to Bazzite. For Intel transcoding on the server I had to install the non-free firmware, and will probably have to do the same.
Check out the other Ublue projects, there are slimmer alternatives in case you won’t do any gaming.
I’m looking at chimera. Mostly because I also want to use the same machine for gaming, and since chimera boots right to steam, then I could add an entry for jellyfin
I was hoping to use Chimera, bit with it only supporting AMD GPU’s (I’m running an Intel n100) I had to keep looking. Bazzite looks interesting.
Yeah, definitely an issue. I’m slowly building up a new rig just for that, and I’m going team red for that build. Honestly the new AMD GPUs are just tanks, and they take on all but the most high end NVidia ones. Doesn’t help if you already have a GPU, but if you’re in the market I can tell you it’s pretty dang awesome. I have looked into Bazzite too, Chimera seems a bit more synced with SteamOS which is why I like it.
Haven’t tested it, but I’m hoping Kodi works well. I’m waiting on my Vero V to arrive, which comes with OSMC (FOSS linux distro made to run Kodi).
I have a Raspberry Pi 3 with a Hifiberry DAC running OSMC (nicely packaged Kodi on top of Debian) acting as my media center and recently installed Jellycon with the hopes of being able to use server side transcoding for a few formats my old TV doesn’t support.
My verdict: Menu navigation is slow, but it’s a native kodi integration (supports widgets) and playback works great once you made your way through the menus. You can selectively set transcoding options per file type which is exactly what I needed.
Best solution I’ve seen so far, as it also does IR remote passthrough over HDMI if your TV supports it. The addon works in any kodi setup of course. I think there might be a way to start playback from the Jellyfin web UI but haven’t bothered with it. This would fully remedy the menu slowness, I think.
I use to run RasPlex on a PiZero with a Bluetooth gamepad as a Plex client. There has to be a jellyfin equivalent. For some time, I have just used older game consoles as media clients instead.
I’ll be honest op if it’s on a TV I use the newer fire sticks with the jellyfin app. They already have support for various codecs and stream from my server just fine. Cheap too and come with a remote.
If I were just trying to get a home made client up I would consider Debian bookworm and just utilize the Deb from the GitHub link here…
https://jellyfin.org/downloads/clients/
Personally I’d throw on cockpit to make remote administration a bit easier and setup an auto start at login for the jellyfin media player with the startup apps. You can even add a launch variable to launch it full screen like…
jellyfin --fullscreenThe media player doesn’t really need special privileges so you could create a basic user account just for jellyfin.
I’d recommend using distro you know best and/or most prefer to work with. I use the flatpak install of Jellyfin Media Player but there are also deb files available.
I’m currently using minipc with Intel n5105 (or something similar) for 1080p HTPC. Debian 12 OS with auto-login & Jellyfin Media Player starting at login. I control it with pepper jobs RF remote but also have a logitech wireless keyboard+touchpad for it. Keyboard+touchpad come in handy when browsing media sites on firefox but some might restrict quality. Some of the newer minipc’s I tried required adding backports repo to install newer kernel for wifi to work. I had been playing with Debian a lot when I set up first one & been using clonezilla to image them so it’s stuck.
Ordered a gmtek n97 minipc to play with and should have it in about a week. Going to test it out with 4k but it’s not a deal breaker for me if it cannot handle that well enough.
As far as I can tell there is no good Linux client for HTPC.
Closest thing is probably SteamOS only you fill the game slots with streaming services with Heroic Games Launcher. But then you’re going to be limited to 720p on most services, which blows.
Kodi is a great Linux client. But that’s not what OP wants, the jellyfin app is a nicer UX experience.
The Jellyfin app is not a Linux distro, that’s what OP asked for.
Yes, I understood that. There are specific OS for Kodi like libreElec, that make it easy to have support for lots of codecs etc. I don’t know if any for specific to Jellyfin, but the Jellyfin App has a better UX than Kodi.
Server OS?
Whatever one you’re most comfortable with.
Client OS?
There’s a lot of different factors for this one.
