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
Even Nvidia video works out of the box without any additional drivers.
The thing with Nvidia is that although the default drivers work, they are more generic and don’t take advantage of all of the features and performance of recent cards. Most people would want to load the proprietary drivers from Nvidia to take full advantage of the card.
Linux would normally include the better drivers, but Nvidia keeps them under a software license that prevents Linux distributions from bundling them.
Even with this, Ubuntu includes a tool that will download and install these drivers that they can’t
I think I wasn’t clear, for NVIDIAs you need to take some action, on some distros is ticking one box during installation, on others is installing the driver afterwards, but they work, all of my current computers are NVIDIA. Even without installing the proprietary drivers NVIDIA cards work fine for 90% of things, the problem is that gaming will have less performance and you wouldn’t be able use CUDA.
I know you’re googling it, but in any case AFAIK Plex can run on integrated cards, most cards can decode video nowadays so it shouldn’t be particularly hard. If you’re looking into using Plex I recommend checking Jellyfin, it’s an open source alternative, I’ve been using it for years and have nothing to complain about.
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
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.
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.
I could be wrong. This was a few years ago when I was new.
Jellyfin is free and open source. To me that’s always the preferred option. Plus, it works very nicely. Haven’t used Plex in a very long time but when I tried it, I didn’t like it.
Kinda, but some hardware need drivers. So it sorta depends.
Yes, just make sure that the boot setup for the distro install is compatible with what you intend to install it onto (I.E. if your server is going to be using EFI to boot an OS, install your Ubuntu instance as GPT, EFI onto the SSD). Depending on what wireless modules you are using and where you are sourcing them and how you are installing them, you might need to ensure Secure Boot is disabled in the BIOS of your server. This will be the case if the kernel module package you are installing doesn’t sign the wireless adapter driver you intend to use. Otherwise, most drivers you could possibly need should be baked into the kernel and you should be good to go.
(One further sidenote coming from someone who has not used Ubuntu in a long time (since 16.04’s release), it would be good to check in the /etc/fstab file that the filesystem references are using either UUID or PARTUUID. Depending upon the drive layout of the server you are mounting the intended drive into, traditionally labeled references such as sda or nvme0n1 can change depending upon the slots each drive is seated. Using UUID or PARTUUID in the fstab reference alleviates any potential complications from this scenario where fstab might reference the wrong drive in mounting partitions. I do believe Ubuntu would likely do this by default nowadays, but it can’t hurt to check.)
Thanks for all the info. I have no comment since I need to watch like 3 youtube videos and spend another hour reading before I really understand that second paragraph, but I will definitely be referring back to it.
What I did pick up was that the kernel actually comes with basic hardware drivers, which is a huge relief. I have pretty standard wifi hardware on standby, so I can try that.
I once transferred an SSD with a Linux Mint installation on it to another computer. It booted up without any issues whatsoever so I’d say it’s perfectly doable.
Probably not the ideal method, but I’ve used a virtual machine with the disk connected via USB and then mounted to the VM to achieve something like this. It doesn’t interfere with the existing disks or UEFI of any actual hardware then.
I’ve heard VM’s aren’t ideal as well, so I’m trying to avoid it. If it ends up being needed though, this is good to know. Thanks!
You could try using usb tethering to provide internet for the installation.
