I have a server that is also plugged into my TV. It’s running Ubuntu server, but then I installed the DE when I started trying to use it with the TV as well.

For the TV I’m using Kodi synced with Jellyfin. Unfortunately it’s not very stable. Most of the time it’s fine, but with specific files Kodi will crash, often bringing down the whole system. I expect this is at least partly because the DE was an afterthought and it’s not running a full DE.

I’m looking at doing a full refresh of the server, and am wondering if there is a distro that is particularly good for this use case. I also want to be able to play games on occasion with xbox controllers.

TL;DR: Can you suggest a distro to run on a PC connected to a TV, used mainly to run Kodi and as a server via docker containers, but also for games via wine/proton with controller support?

  • jnk :InfinityVerified:@masto.es
    1·
    1 month ago

    @Dave @deadbeef for the gaming part you don’t even need the second pc connected to the tv. I’ve been trying sunshine and moonlight (a server and client for game streaming) and it’s been running really great in the same network. The client can even run on an old nintendo 2ds, so your laptop should do more than fine to try, that way you’d only have a media and a gaming clients on the laptop, everything else to the server in another room.
    I’m currently using a similar setup but with Jellyfin instead of kodi, working great for a few months.

    • Dave@lemmy.nzOP
      1·
      1 month ago

      Thanks for the suggestion! That sounds really cool, I got my hopes up for a second, but it looks like 5Ghz wifi is required. It makes sense, for speed/latency reasons, but unfortunately the old laptop plugged into the TV is quite old. At least 10 years old, probably more.

      I am expecting to replace my current laptop in the next year or so, so maybe I’ll look at this setup at that point.

      • jnk :InfinityVerified:@masto.es
        1·
        1 month ago

        @Dave well that’s a shame. To be fair, the only time i tried so use it over wifi was on the 2ds, which was pretty slow. It worked only with low resolution, so just a cool experiment, not really practical.

        That said yeah if you replace the laptop I’d focus on the best wifi card possible and leave the power to the server. I’m actually planning to switch an old laptop to an orange pi for this reason.