[Tutorial] Turn An Old PC to Home Media Server

I am coming to you today with a different type of content. I have never posted anything about technology before. But, I am sharing a tutorial for those who have a really old PC that they are not using. They can turn it to a Home Media Server.

First, we need to tackle the fact that installing any recent operating system will make your old PC or laptop really slow. So, I have selected for you a really small Linux Distribution to install as an operating system and this shall not take much of your device resources.

I'll go ahead with the steps now:

1. Download MX Linux

https://mxlinux.org/download-links/
Once you are done. Burn it on a USB and then install it on your device.

1. Open terminal

Press CTRL + ALT + T to open a terminal

1. Update the package list by running the below code

sudo apt update
it will ask you for the password of the super user. The default is "root" without brackets, unless you've changed it.

After you are done with all of the above steps, we will need to install Jellyfin. This is their installation guide: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/installation/linux I will explain it below as well.

1. Open terminal again if you haven't done that already and Install curl and gnupg through running the below command:

sudo apt install curl gnupg

1. Enable Universe Repo

sudo add-apt-repository universe
In case it fails, you can achieve the same results with the below command.
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

1. Download the GPG signing key

sudo mkdir -p /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://repo.jellyfin.org/jellyfin_team.gpg.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/jellyfin.gpg

1. Again, update the packages

sudo apt update

1. Install Jellyfin

sudo apt install jellyfin

1. Start Jellyfin

sudo systemctl start jellyfin

Now, you have installed the server.

Open a web browser from another device to use Jellyfin. Here is the address:

http://[Jellyfin_Server_IP]:8096

These are the default credentials for admin:

Username: admin
Password: admin
If it didn't work. Try not entering a password. It shall work.

Once you are done, you have created your media server. Now, we can start adding the folders to Jellyfin which includes our movies.

1. Go to your browser which you've opened Jellyfin from.

2. Go to Admin then, Dashboard.

3. On your left hand side, you'll find a menu, go to Server then, Libraries.

4. Click on "Add Media Library".

5. Choose the folders and add them.

6. Your Jellyfin will sync your movies and TV shows similar to Netflix.

Note, put your movies in a separate folder from your TV shows to have a better organization of your media.

Troubleshooting:

In case, Jellyfin is not able to see your folders. Follow the below steps:

1. Open terminal on your old PC.

2. Navigate to your folder:

cd /path/to/your/folder

1. Check the permission of the folder:

ls -l

1. Change the permission:

sudo chmod -R u+rwx /path/to/your/folder

1. Recheck if the permissions have changed:

ls -l

Now, go back to Jellyfin and click on "Add Media Library". If the folders are still not showing, you need to restart Jellyfin by writing the below commands in the terminal of your old PC.

1. Stop Jellyfin

sudo systemctl stop jellyfin

1. Give it a minute or two to stop. Or, just restart your device.

2. Then, start Jellyfin

sudo systemctl start jellyfin

Note: every time your router changes the IP address of your old PC, you will have to enter the new IP Address. So, you can solve this by giving your old PC a Static IP Address. Just write your router model in Google and next to it Static IP Address and you'll get the steps to do that (they are really short). Or, you can ask AI for help with that.

Another note: on Jellyfin, you can go to Admin Dashboard and add users.

Golden tip: Disable transcoding!.. Your laptop will try to transcode your videos and that takes a lot of resources. An old device may not be able to handle that. You can do this by following the below steps:

1. Login to your admin user account.

2. Go to Settings

3. Go to Playback Settings

4. Disable Transcoding

5. Save Changes.

Lastly, you can install the Jellyfin on your Android and IOS devices to watch your movies and TV shows.

I wrote this guide as a help to those who have old unused devices and they are looking to make a use of it.