I have a MS workstation I'm using as a media server. It has no video or keyboard and mouse connection and is only connected via Ethernet. I circumvent this in two ways:
I pull the data from my TV by selecting the DLNA workstation or RDP into the workstation and cast to the TV. I'm exploring a manner in which to accomplish the same thing in a *nix OS, currently trying Ubuntu. I've installed Kodi and VLC and cant seem to accomplish either of these. What software is available, or OS available, that I can use to accomplish this. I haven't created a Samba share with the videos on it which I may or may not need to do.
The workstation accomplishes as few other things, i.e. it's the syncing (backup) workstation for my cells phones via Resilio sync and has a hypervisor so I need a full OS solution.
I use miniDLNA to cast from a Raspberry Pi to an LG smart TV and it works like charm. The only thing that's a bit annoying is stopping the service once in a while and update the available files manually. I think there's a way to automate all of this but I didn't put it in place since I'm not adding media continuously to my library.
Kodi should be able to do dlna streaming, so you could use their kodi OS or whatever they call it if you want a whole OS. There are probably simpler dlna servers but I've found plex to be the best one I've used, but it could be too heavy if you don't want all the metadata stuff.
Well I've got KODI loaded up on an Ubuntu VM on my laptop atm and my TV isn't seeing the DLNA server on it. Am I supposed to open up Samba on the folders I'm wanting to see on the DLNA device or something?
Shouldn't have to. Is the VM and the TV on the same layer 2 network? If it's routed it won't work. Also try a dlna app on your phone or some other device and see if that detects it, dlna can sometimes be a little hit or miss.
Yeah they're on the same subnet. I'll have to tinker with it more this week. The idea is to migrate my Windows system that hosys my dlna files with my hyper v pfsense over to Linux.
You can install it on any Linux distro I guess, it's up to you to decide which one you like more. Also note that miniDLNA is like the bare minimum DLNA server that I've found, it's not like Plex. But, being so minimal, requires a very little amount of resources.
I have had a very good experience with Plex, providing remote and mobile access was well as local streaming with an easy to use web/app interface. Plex client Apps are available of IOS, Android and Webos (LG TVs) and windows (not sure about MacOS) that give you a graphical front end with automatically added media information. Plex, for all its features is not that resource intensive.
If you only want to access media on the local network from a smart TV using the very basic text based interface, or have a dlna graphical client for your device, then minidlna is probably good enough.
I am running plex on my i7-2600 windows desktop along side everything else. The only time I close it down is if I am running benchmarks.
If you are trying to offload the media to another *nix box, your easiest solution would be to just install one of the NAS distros. Most, if not all have multiple DLNA options including Plex.
To support Plex transcoding of 1080p video, you need a minimum of an i3 level CPU. This is the Plex compatibility list for the commercially available NAS products so it should give you an idea of minimum HW requirements if you wast to transcode your media on the fly to support mobile devices or different TV models. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MfYoJkiwSqCXg8cm5-Ac4oOLPRtCkgUxU0jdj3tmMPc/edit#gid=314388488
Alright. I'm hoping the only reason I'm not seeing anything is just because it's virtualized right now. I'll spin up that VM, migrate my stuff over, and just keep my windows file server until I can ensure the Plex will work.