The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Using it for music should be no problem, however if it will be powerful enough to stream video is another thing - a mid 2000 machine can be a lot of things and some are just slow. I suggest getting your hands on it and simply see what it will do with some video files before putting in a lot of time, it should be possible to get VLC running on it without to much work.
As for optimizing it depends. Many laptops will share there RAM between the OS and the GPU and if you get in the BIOS you can then, often, tweak how much of the RAM is set aside for the GPU so that can be one area to look at. Other than that I'd say it is making sure it uses the newest available drivers and minimizing what stuff runs in the background that uses CPU cycles.
For safety and choice of software putting Linux or Chrome OS on it is a good idea, but as mentioned I'd test out first if it is worthwhile even trying.
You can make an amazing media pc out of a mid 2000's laptop with plex on Linux.
What is the model #?
I am happy to walk you through here or in PM's.
What you are able to do is play ANY media to a TV via the HDMI or whatever it has as an output and you can even queue stuff up from your phone. You can leave the laptop lid shut (usually) and just play whatever you want.
As a bonus you could even play some games now that Steam is pretty decent on Linux
I had an Aspire 7100. I concur that the screen is way better than it has any right to be.
It will not do particularly well with any kind of modern video file. I could not get mine to play 720P mkvs through VLC full-screen without dropping frames, though it would play them if VLC was in windowed mode and not scaling from 1280x720 to the full resolution of the screen. For DVDs and standard def stuff, it should be fine, or maybe if you are outputting video to a native 720p screen so it doesn’t need to scale.
For DVDs they'll be fine, but if they want to play 4K UHD content, I don't believe that system will be able to handle it.
There's pretty cheap (as in cheaper than the cheapest GPU that will suffice) Raspberry Pi-a-likes that will do the job though. If you're going to put $100 of your time into bringing this system up to speed, it might be worth considering.
I've finally gotten around to looking at this. It appears that it has been set up to dual boot Linux Mint 18.3 "Sylvia" and Windows XP. I have full authorization to strip this down and rebuild it if it will improve the performance. I've done a few google searches and have gotten a range of explanations for how to get things set up for a media player/server for a TV. A number of them talk about how no technical skills are required at all and then immediately jump into
The easiest way to install and manage Plex Media Server on Ubuntu 18.04 is by using the Plex official repository. It requires no technical knowledge and it should not take you more than 20 minutes to install and configure the media server.
Follow the steps below to install the Plex Media Server on your Ubuntu system:
Start by importing the repository’s GPG key using the following curl command:
and goes on to using a text editor to modify a firewall profile file and open up ports using command line inputs.
My suspicion is that what the author of this piece considers technical knowledge may differ from what the general public might consider technical knowledge.
The end user of this setup is going to have pretty low computer skills and technical knowledge. This isn't "grandparents capable of somehow bypassing all lockdowns and restricted user rights within 5 minutes" low knowledge, just more of someone who uses their phone and the basic inputs in a Windows PC, but asks someone else to help make sure their Antivirus is up to date and wouldn't know what defraging their HDD is.
Uses are likely going to be
1. Playing various music and video files, ideally through their TV output.
2. Streaming via online sources.
3. Playing mounted DVD rips on the TV output (files transferred via USB after ripping on their main laptop)
4. May involve use of a web browser to navigate things like Youtube or other online streaming sources that don't all have an app.
5. Photo slideshows (I think their TV does this just fine, and this isn't a solid requirement).
If the setup works, they may go and pick up a cheap bluetooth mouse and keyboard.
Other specs: Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 32-bit
Cinnamon Version: 3.6.7
Linux Kernal: 4.13.0-45-generic
Processor: Intel Celeron M processor, 1.60 GHz x1
Memory: 1.0 GiB
Hard Drive: 36.6 GB
Graphics Card: Intel Mobil 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller
Screen Resolution: LVDS1 - 1440x900 (16:10)
Sound: Digital Output (S/PDIF) Built-in Audio
My thought is that the dual boot setup is probably not needed and if I can get any optimizations out of tweaking that/free up HDD space (currently 28.4 GB free), I should go for it.
setting up a linux machine with plex is not what I would described as a newbie friendly process however it's also not mr. robot level stuff either.
The simplest way is to install linux (there is an option in the setup of most distro's to "use the whole hard drive" which will wipe everything else for simplicity's sake.
Then, once installed you can install plex via whatever software manager come with the distro. It may not be the latest plex but it is verified to work with what you have installed.
Once plex is installed there is a setup wizard which guides you through adding your media and bam, you're done.
If you want the server to be accessible outside of the location where the machine is then yes you need to open ports however if this is for internal use only then it doesn't matter.
some of those guides go pretty far into the weeds tweaking stuff but if this was my mom or grandparents I'd just install linux, install plex and give them a wireless mouse. The end.
I went and got Plex set up on the Linux distro. Things were working pretty smoothly right up until the onboard video card failed. I am now looking into media centres. There are a number of Kodi boxes available. Any recommendations that seem to meet the requirements I described previously? I am wondering if it makes sense to add an extra HDD on, since a lot of them seem to be limited to about 32 GB of flash memory for storage.
You'll definitely outgrow whatever onboard storage they have. Get something with a USB 3 / thunderbolt port and you'll be good to go for the foreseeable future.
I am afraid I have little experience with Kodi (last time i used it seriously it was called XBMC )
The big difference between Plex and Kodi is (I believe) that the latter doesn't transcode its stream. If your bandwidth (and hardware) supports the native stream, this isn't really an issue.
I switched to Plex so I could stream to my phone on hotel WiFi.
I'm thinking what I might try to do, is grab a kodi box, reformat it and install Linux with Plex and add on a larger HDD. Is this something that should be easily doable or is it likely to be complex in some fashion? I can follow guide pretty well, but if it involves the command line and what I see doesn't match the guide then I am likely to get in trouble.
Depending on their hardware, you might need a very specific Linux distro* (though it probably exists), but some of those devices might just let you install Plex, no wipe needed.
*(So verify if anyone has done so with your specific device of choice if you're worried about wrestling with the console. )
Plex allows directplay as well, doesn't have to transcode. You just have to be particular as to what format you are ripping your media (video and audio codecs) so that many (all) devices support directplay of the file.
It's complex and stupid because no one wants to play together so most people just deal with transcoding.
Posts
As for optimizing it depends. Many laptops will share there RAM between the OS and the GPU and if you get in the BIOS you can then, often, tweak how much of the RAM is set aside for the GPU so that can be one area to look at. Other than that I'd say it is making sure it uses the newest available drivers and minimizing what stuff runs in the background that uses CPU cycles.
For safety and choice of software putting Linux or Chrome OS on it is a good idea, but as mentioned I'd test out first if it is worthwhile even trying.
What is the model #?
I am happy to walk you through here or in PM's.
What you are able to do is play ANY media to a TV via the HDMI or whatever it has as an output and you can even queue stuff up from your phone. You can leave the laptop lid shut (usually) and just play whatever you want.
As a bonus you could even play some games now that Steam is pretty decent on Linux
It will not do particularly well with any kind of modern video file. I could not get mine to play 720P mkvs through VLC full-screen without dropping frames, though it would play them if VLC was in windowed mode and not scaling from 1280x720 to the full resolution of the screen. For DVDs and standard def stuff, it should be fine, or maybe if you are outputting video to a native 720p screen so it doesn’t need to scale.
There's pretty cheap (as in cheaper than the cheapest GPU that will suffice) Raspberry Pi-a-likes that will do the job though. If you're going to put $100 of your time into bringing this system up to speed, it might be worth considering.
setting up a linux machine with plex is not what I would described as a newbie friendly process however it's also not mr. robot level stuff either.
The simplest way is to install linux (there is an option in the setup of most distro's to "use the whole hard drive" which will wipe everything else for simplicity's sake.
Then, once installed you can install plex via whatever software manager come with the distro. It may not be the latest plex but it is verified to work with what you have installed.
Once plex is installed there is a setup wizard which guides you through adding your media and bam, you're done.
If you want the server to be accessible outside of the location where the machine is then yes you need to open ports however if this is for internal use only then it doesn't matter.
some of those guides go pretty far into the weeds tweaking stuff but if this was my mom or grandparents I'd just install linux, install plex and give them a wireless mouse. The end.
You'll definitely outgrow whatever onboard storage they have. Get something with a USB 3 / thunderbolt port and you'll be good to go for the foreseeable future.
Virtually any multicore system with 8+GB ram and a good connection will work.
Storage of good quality video adds up FAST.
When I was hosting my own locally (I don't any longer) I was using 4+ TB and it's only my house using it...
The big difference between Plex and Kodi is (I believe) that the latter doesn't transcode its stream. If your bandwidth (and hardware) supports the native stream, this isn't really an issue.
I switched to Plex so I could stream to my phone on hotel WiFi.
Depending on their hardware, you might need a very specific Linux distro* (though it probably exists), but some of those devices might just let you install Plex, no wipe needed.
*(So verify if anyone has done so with your specific device of choice if you're worried about wrestling with the console. )
It's complex and stupid because no one wants to play together so most people just deal with transcoding.