Ths might be a silly question, but asking those is how i learn sometimes. I’m trying to install my first Linux distro to set up a Plex server and one of the few things I know is you need a wired internet connection. My intended server location is across the house from my router, and there isnt much room there to set up temporarily. It would be possible, just a removed and a half. Is it instead possible to connect my SSD via SATA to USB to a laptop, install Ubuntu and wireless adapter drivers on it while connected to ethernet, then put the SSD in the server to boot? Or do I need to do all this through my intended setup?
Thanks for the help, just trying to make my first Linux install as painless as possible.
EDIT: Thank you all for your responses, I’m going to respond as I can since I’m at work. I The number one thing I learned is that I need to do more research. I recognize only a handful of these acronyms lol
You don’t need any internet connection to install Ubuntu. Just use the normal install, not minimal network installer. Install from a USB stick.
Also, there’s no requirement for a wire either. If that were the case, you could never install on any modern laptop.
You would need some sort of functioning network to upgrade packages or install anything not in the base image, but this would all be after installation when you have a working OS and wired or wireless won’t matter.
Ah okay. I just remember hearing that all your drivers need to be manually installed and updated in Linux, so for me that included ALL drivers, even basic ones like that. If I can get started wirelessly that would be perfect. Thanks!
It’s almost completely the opposite, drivers are (almost completely) a windows problem. If you’re willing and able to go the open source route, which for most people mean “I don’t have an NVIDIA card or don’t plan on getting every ounce of performance from it” you don’t need to worry about drivers at all (bar some weird cards, but they’re getting rarer and rarer, I don’t remember the last time I had to install a driver that wasn’t NVIDIA).
Good to know I should avoid NVIDIA for Linux. The only NVIDIA card I have is on my gaming rig, so I don’t plan on having to deal with that since I’m sticking with Windows on that until (hopefully) more studios start caring about Linux compatibility. Can’t wait to cut that Microsoft umbilical cord permanently.
That said, do I need dedicated graphics on a Plex server? I was going to go integrated, but your comment made me realize I never checked hardware requirements. Which are probably on Plex’s website. Which I am now going to go check because Lemmy isn’t Google and it’s not your responsibility to hand me answers I can easily find.
Nope, not gonna be that guy today. Thanks lol
I’m not sure if Ubuntu requires a wired internet connection. I’ve installed a different distro yesterday and wifi worked fine during the installation. The installer asked me to connect to network and I used the wifi. I’ve never plugged a network cable into the machine. Maybe it’s the same with Ubuntu. But sure, there are other possibilities. Offline installers and/or you can install Linux on a different machine and then swap the harddisk/ssd. Just take care not to overwrite the internal disk of your laptop. Make sure it writes to the correct disk (or unplug other ones).
I believe the answer is no. I think it installs over Wi-Fi, fine, so long as the adapter isn’t a weird of brand or something.
That’s it. I have installed Ubuntu many times connected over Wi-Fi without any problems, except one special case many years ago. In that case, the system had some brand new Wi-Fi adapter, so I had to install the driver over Ethernet. But in almost any case it just should work and you can simply try to get a wireless connection in a live sytem to find out. And as mentioned above, internet connection is not necessary while installing from USB stick with the usual image. Its just recommended to save time and install the latest updates of some components during the initial system installation. But of course, you can do it later and of course you can do it over Wi-Fi (except some very rare special cases as mentioned at the beginning).
Off topic. Can I suggest you to also explore Jellyfin instead of Plex? Just give it a shot before you pay to Plex folks is all I am asking. Use whichever you find better.
I don’t mind suggestions at all, is there a reason to prefer one over the other? Is there Plex controversy? I just went with it because I had a buddy who used it years ago and I remember it being effective
I went with jellyfin because it’s free and open-source. I have never used Plex, but there are few issues with Plex that I had noted as cons
- Your authentication happens through Plex servers and not locally
- Alongside your own content, Plex pushes other content as well , etc etc.
However, there is one con in Jellyfin, the clients are not as polished as it is for Plex.
Neither of these points are entirely correct.
While remote authentication is the default, you can configure Plex to not require any sort of auth at all for local users. That’s how mine is setup, and we can watch content around the house even when our ISP is offline.
I also don’t get ads or anything else pushing other content - I only ever see my own. You just have to not show those things in the sidebar. So again, the defaults can be changed.
Definitely worth trying Jellyfin if it works for a particular case. I’ve tried Jellyfin, Emby, and Plex - but only found the latter to be reliable enough for OTA DVR via an HDHomeRun which is our primary use case.
Yes, at the beginning of the pandemic it was discovered that Plex Inc had been tracking, reporting home, and selling user watching habits to advertisers. Basically the exact thing many Plex users were trying to get away from.
This inspired many developers (who were otherwise stuck at home due to said pandemic) to fork Emby and thus Jellyfin was born.
Yes you can do that, make sure you are on the same CPU infrastructure (ie, don’t try to install linux on an SSD from an intel laptop if you’re going to be running it on an arm based processor or something).
If you’re going to be using it as a Plex server, aren’t you going to need some sort of network connection anyways?
I think the premise was the plex server will be running off of wifi and they didn’t think they would have wifi drivers available to them during install so they wanted to install hard wired.
No how wise it is to run a plex server off of wifi is another discussion all together but maybe for a different time.
This is exactly what I was asking. I would be interested in hearing why wifi isn’t a good idea though. I didn’t think bandwidth would be too much of a problem, so is this a security concern?
No, not with modern wifi security isn’t an issue. If bandwith is an issue for installing the OS then bandwidth will be 10x an issue for using the plex server.
Mostly for bandwidth and connection stability reasons… if the plex server is only serving your own home then likely not much to worry about but if you are serving plex content for ppl outside your home it can be troublesome if your wifi starts acting up and they don’t know why they suddenly start buffering.
Nothing about plex itself is limited by wifi it’s just a potentially a high bandwidth / throughput service and typically you wouldn’t want that on wifi.
@Hazmatastic @theredcaps I think it is a bandwidth concern, especially if multiple people will be streaming from the server. WiFi is unstable too its part in parcel, wired is just required if you need something that’s stable
