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PC SAVY Folks here, Advice needed


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On 12/15/2019 at 9:35 AM, Ron E said:

Sure, but when you compare computers Linux is way more common than windows. Linux runs on appliances, servers, cars, and almost everything you use daily, and does not sell your info either. Read the Eula and you will see that Microsoft is leasing Windows to you and retains the rights to anything that is on your PC.

Here are the stats on all the other uses besides desktops.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-market-share/

 

If you want a media server there is no way Windows is as good as Linux is for home use. You do not need a fast computer, OS is free, and runs rock stable. Microsoft is now telling everyone they have to leave earlier versions because they want everyone on Windows 10...what they do not want to accept is that the windows 7 users want nothing to do with windows 10, and its info stealing software.

 

If you are ok with them taking your info and selling it, that it's you decision.. I am not, and will not return after running Windows since the first version of Windows.

 

Sent from my SM-T830 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

 

I always wondered why Win10 was a free upgrade...nothing is ever free!

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An old MAC mini here. Still running I tunes with everything ripped via ALAC lossless. The wireless mouse and keyboard are very handy while listening and surfing on the couch.    It takes a decent stereo DVD or a good multi channel to make my hair stand up anymore, but I know there are much better ears here than mine.

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Thinking about data mining this morning and the theoretical "safety" Linux is supposed to have as compared to Win 10 which is a data slurper. There is only one way to have security and that is do not EVER go online and I don't care what OS you use this is the only way. I wonder how many of you Linux box guys are twitter and google and facebook and Linkedin and other data swiping social media and search engine program users that you use because they are free. Android is on many more devices than Linux and all you with smart phones just sit there and feed data slurpers. Same for iPhones with your current location and sound and videos turned on when you don't know it.   I find the idea that Linux is secure to be quite amusing. It is a part of the mystique Linux has acquired from it's very small but loyal desktop user base who then go online. What is Linux in the PC world as a percentage? Or as a percentage of operating systems? Anyone care to guess or answer?

 

  Today IF Linux is safer it is because it's usefulness to many people is so small, it is 2% estimated for PC installs, that hackers don't bother to mess with it. Sadly neither do many program developers and coders of useful software so it is an interesting but purely a niche product.

 

 

 

 

  1696351679_ScreenHunter_435Dec_1805_32.thumb.jpg.af269eed9c9244fb10a22afceb54b4ff.jpg

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1 hour ago, Dave A said:

Sadly neither do many program developers and coders of useful software so it is an interesting but purely a niche product.

 

How many calendar programs do you need? Or word processors? Or...

 

I don't think you can call Linux a niche product. Again, Microsoft strong armed PC vendors in the early days, and this is why we ended up with a mostly (at present) Windows world.

 

Corporate sponsors of linux developments are, among others:

 

IBM, Microsoft, Lenovo, Amazon Web Services, and literally dozens more, from flight controls to robotics, signal processing, etc. A huge amount of cloud services are run on Ubuntu.

 

Here's a link to the Ubuntu Linux partners:

 

https://partners.ubuntu.com/find-a-partner

 

Forgot to add, the Mac OS is also based around a unix/linux derivative. That happened when they went from OS9 to OS X. They just put a pretty face on it.

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4 minutes ago, Marvel said:

IBM, Microsoft, Lenovo, Amazon Web Services, and literally dozens more, from flight controls to robotics, signal processing, etc. A huge amount of cloud services are run on Ubuntu.

 

The Linux kernel is very solid. Linus Torvalds has overseen that with an iron fist. And since it is open-source, its innards are visible to everybody so if there's anything unsavory in it, the whole world can see.

 

But there is more to an operating system than the kernel, just as there is more to an automobile than the engine. And it's those non-kernel parts that give developers fits. Each developer builds upon the efforts of others, and in a built-by-committee environment like Linux that means there are many different ways to choose from to do the same thing -- some better than others, some just plain bad. It can be so frustrating that people (like me) just give up and return to a friendlier environment (like Windows). Corporations like those mentioned above have the internal resources to ignore the works of others and develop their own versions of those non-kernel parts, if necessary. So to expand the analogy, the large corporations can build whatever automobile they want around the Linux engine, while individuals developers are at the mercy of the auto parts available commercially, or those few parts that they can fabricate themselves.

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I do not understand the rationality of because your data is sold on windows, and by Google or other OSs that you should not run a device that is not selling your data, and is more stable and reliable. In addition...this thread was about what to run for a media player. I would like to know how many manufacturers are running windows on their media players vs Android or Linux., and how many windows DIY platforms can run on a USB stick that is less than 50gb.

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ok Intel nuc so what model of nuc is considered good I have sen bad reviews on some. 
I would stay away from the 8th gen i7 as reports are the fan is noisy...unless you want to spend even more and get a fan less case for it. I run an Asus minion thatis a i5, and it works great. I also have a Intel NUC that is a Celeron, and it works very well on Linux for music, and movies (not 4k though as it is not enough power). My Celeron is about 5 years old, and my Asus is about 3 years old...both have no fans, although the Celeron does get a tad bit warm when watching movies.

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46 minutes ago, Ron E said:

I would stay away from the 8th gen i7 as reports are the fan is noisy...unless you want to spend even more and get a fan less case for it. I run an Asus minion thatis a i5, and it works great. I also have a Intel NUC that is a Celeron, and it works very well on Linux for music, and movies (not 4k though as it is not enough power). My Celeron is about 5 years old, and my Asus is about 3 years old...both have no fans, although the Celeron does get a tad bit warm when watching movies.

 

I have an early NUC with an i3, and it does a ton of audio signal processing (but no video), including multichannel FFTs and IFFTs in real time at 96 kHz. If you're only using the NUC as an audio server, then you don't need i7 processing power.

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On 12/13/2019 at 8:53 PM, Thaddeus Smith said:

Then a Raspberry PI model 3

Any reason to run a Raspberry over anything such as a PS3, XBOX, or even any player that offers playback. As I typed this, I got to thinking you may be running an app or software not supported by any of those. 

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4 minutes ago, The Dude said:

Any reason to run a Raspberry over anything such as a PS3, XBOX, or even any player that offers playback. As I typed this, I got to thinking you may be running an app or software not supported by any of those. 

 

As long as you're not trying to send more than two audio channels over HDMI, then the Pi 3 should be fine. AFAIK it fully supports multichannel over USB, just not over HDMI.

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6 minutes ago, The Dude said:

Any reason to run a Raspberry over anything such as a PS3, XBOX, or even any player that offers playback. As I typed this, I got to thinking you may be running an app or software not supported by any of those. 

 

Because I'm running roon as my music server, I'm using a custom install on the RPI which allows it to be a natively supported roon endpoint. The digital HAT bypasses any USB issues with the RPI and the footprint is small.

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I don't want to hijack Joe's thread, but I never understood why all the gear is needed.  I  am under this impression that I can build a media server/NAS (with whichever preferred os) run plex, then just use the Plex app  with whichever device.  Is this not correct? Maybe its why my media server/NAS isn't up and running.  

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3 minutes ago, Thaddeus Smith said:

Because I'm running roon as my music server, I'm using a custom install on the RPI which allows it to be a natively supported roon endpoint. The digital HAT bypasses any USB issues with the RPI and the footprint is small.

I assume Roon is needed with your specific NAS.  

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2 minutes ago, The Dude said:

I assume Roon is needed with your specific NAS.  

 

Nope. I'm running unRAID with Plex as my media server. I didn't like the music interface for music and the Nvidia shield I'm using for playback of video resamples all audio for some reason.

 

edit: when it comes to my curated flac library, I want everything played exactly as the source material. i'm also a heavy spotify user and don't care about resampling, etc in that space.

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1 hour ago, The Dude said:

I don't want to hijack Joe's thread, but I never understood why all the gear is needed.  I  am under this impression that I can build a media server/NAS (with whichever preferred os) run plex, then just use the Plex app  with whichever device.  Is this not correct? Maybe its why my media server/NAS isn't up and running.  

 

Keep in mind that I have zero physical media. So my sources are an NVIDIA shield for all local movies and tv shows via plex, then spotify/netflix/amazon apps for streaming media. Then I have this little raspberry pi for dedicated flac music. That's it.. two devices plugged into my AVR. My NAS sits out in the garage office and falls under the umbrella of my "homelab" hobby along with a couple of other servers where I tinker with virtualization and miscellaneous sandboxes.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/15/2019 at 7:59 AM, Ron E said:

Yup, no bloated OS with Linux. Also if you have not tried Linux lately... it is a very smooth install, and pretty easy

to install media players, free, and rock solid too

 

Sent from my SM-T830 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

 

@codewritinfool

@Marvel

@Ron E

 

So this thread and the discussion has me thinking for the last week or so about putting together a nuc for a music server. Newegg has a nuc kit/chassis with a 2 core celeron processor, super low power draw of 11 watts and a really tempting price of ~ $140 delivered. So I add ram and I have an extra 2.5 sata ssd sitting in my closet. I have assembled a few desktops over the years all using windows OS. I searched and Intel offers zero driver support for linux OS. I know linux is free but what would I do for drivers? Like chipset, on board video, and audio drivers to make the nuc functional? What challenges would I have to overcome to achieve my end goal? What software or apps to make the nuc functional to rip my cds to it and serve as my network music server? I was thinking of using a usb cd/dvd drive with this also to rip my cds.

 

Any guidance is appreciated. I'm just weighing whether I can pull this off myself, or just forget it. Thx.

 

I have been ordering from newegg for 15 years. Here is the nuc chassis/kit I mentioned : https://www.newegg.com/intel-boxnuc7cjyh1/p/N82E16856102203?Item=N82E16856102203&Description=intel nuc&cm_re=intel_nuc-_-56-102-203-_-Product

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When you install most flavors of Linux, you won't need to install any extra drivers. Everything will just work.

 

Installed linux mint on a Lenovo Yoga with an i7 and 8 gig of ram. Everything works, sound, networking, hires display, including the touchscreen.

 

Performance is superb.

 

Bruce

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