Linux Drive Sharing / Media PC

[TechXero]

Hey Linus Community,

 

Let me preface this with what I got so far, I have an old PC that am using as my Storage/HTPC(Plex Server). 3770k CPU, GTX 650Ti OC, 32gb RAM... Many Hard drives in it, naturally... Only it is currently running on Windows 10 Pro, which recently got hit with the Artemis Virus which infected all existing executable files on it. Which was devastating... Now I want to completely shift it to Linux.

 

Now what I want, as mentioned I want to convert the machine to Linux so it never gets infected again. Dunno which distro to use. I am considering Linux Mint (Cinnamon). Am new to Linux so I have no idea beyond installing. Also since I got so many hard drives in that machine dunno how to permanently share them with my main gaming PC running windows 10.

 

I also want to set up Plex Media Server on it coz that's what am using now to watch my movies n tv shows on my nVidia Shield and Apple TV. Don't care about transcoding performance as I only Direct Stream within the house Locally.

 

Please, can anyone help me here... The longer this takes the more files are getting infected

[tikker]

Ubuntu or Mint are good distros to go with as they are beginner friendly.

 

Sharing files between Linux and Windows

For sharing files between your linux box and gaming PC you can set up a Samba share. Install instructions can be found here. As an example of how I have it setup in the config file (just add it to the bottom):

[Movies]
path = /media/MOVIES
browsable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
read only = no

where the keywords should be pretty self-explanatory. You can then access it from Windows by opening explorer, go to My Computer and clicking on "Map network drive". Clicking on "Browse..." should allow you to see the server and add drive letters to those folders.

 

Setting up Plex

Download the plex installer for Linux from their website and run it. That should be all. Then setup as usual.

One thing that I had to do to make Plex work with the Samba shares is that I had to mount my drives as owned by Plex instead of me (as it's installed as a separate user). Maybe there's an easier route, but in case it doesn't work out of the box, this is what I did:

1. Use "sudo blkid" to find the UUID of the drive.

2. Edit /etc/fstab (make a backup of it before you edit this file) by adding

 UUID=<UUID> <path/to/media> ntfs uid=plex,gid=1000,dmask=027,fmask=137

replace ntfs with whatever you formatted your drives as.

[TechXero]

Thanks buddy but I was trying elementaryOS, unfortunately I cannot mount any of my storage drives as they all are NTFS. Keep getting mount error. is that due to a driver not being installed to support ntfs in linux or what ?

 

Anyway I am setting up Mint as we speak. My drives are local to the machine I just want the shares coz I download movies n shows on main PC then transfer to Media PC.

[tikker]

31 minutes ago, TechXero said:

Thanks buddy but I was trying elementaryOS, unfortunately I cannot mount any of my storage drives as they all are NTFS. Keep getting mount error. is that due to a driver not being installed to support ntfs in linux or what ?

 

Anyway I am setting up Mint as we speak. My drives are local to the machine I just want the shares coz I download movies n shows on main PC then transfer to Media PC.

What error are you getting, the exact message is more useful? The linux kernel should at least have NTFS read support. You could try installing ntfs-3g which supports both reading and writing NTFS file systems.

[TechXero]

9 minutes ago, tikker said:

What error are you getting? The linux kernel should at least have NTFS read support. You could try installing ntfs-3g which supports both reading and writing NTFS file systems.

Some long a** error... Error mounting bla bla bla... I tried installing ntfs-3g with a gui ntfs-config it messed up. Anyway Mint is up and running now still same error.

 

PS : can we chat on any IM service?

 

[tikker]

5 minutes ago, TechXero said:

Some long a** error... Error mounting bla bla bla... I tried installing ntfs-3g with a gui ntfs-config it messed up. Anyway Mint is up and running now still same error.

 

 

 

Did you properly shut down Windows before removing the drive? That is no hibernation or anything. It could also be due to Fast Startup from Windows. There is a program called ntfsfix that can fix this message. That worked for me.* Although this shouldn't do any harm if it's due to Fast  Startup, a safer bet would be to disable Fast Startup and shutdown again.

 

*As always with these things, this is at your own risk.

[TechXero]

9 minutes ago, tikker said:

Did you properly shut down Windows before removing the drive? That is no hibernation or anything. It could also be due to Fast Startup from Windows. There is a program called ntfsfix that can fix this message. That worked for me.* Although this shouldn't do any harm if it's due to Fast  Startup, a safer bet would be to disable Fast Startup and shutdown again.

 

*As always with these things, this is at your own risk.

Yes I shut down Windows correctly and unplugged the drive using another spare ssd to play around with Linux without harming Windows. Will try ntfsfix now. Can we chat somewhere ?

 

Edit : tried ntfsfix error says corrupt. tried chkdsk says command not found... Am getting pissed now xS

[tikker]

12 minutes ago, TechXero said:

Yes I shut down Windows correctly and unplugged the drive using another spare ssd to play around with Linux without harming Windows. Will try ntfsfix now. Can we chat somewhere ?

Try ntfsfix then, should be smooth sailing from there on with just a bit of fiddling with samba. Here's fine, I'm on and off my PC with other things to do as well.

[TechXero]

3 minutes ago, tikker said:

Try ntfsfix then, should be smooth sailing from there on with just a bit of fiddling with samba. Here's fine, I'm on and off my PC with other things to do as well.

ntfsfix resulted in errors bruv. Cannot do anything been googling for an hour no fix in sight. It might be because my drives are bigger than 1tb I got 2tb drives as well as 4tb/6tb and above. If I cannot resolve this Linux crap I might as well go back to Windows coz there no issues, well except virus infection coming back

 

tried chkdsk says command not found... Am getting pissed now xS

 

I knew I hated Linux for a reason ugh... xS

[tikker]

50 minutes ago, TechXero said:

ntfsfix resulted in errors bruv. Cannot do anything been googling for an hour no fix in sight. It might be because my drives are bigger than 1tb I got 2tb drives as well as 4tb/6tb and above. If I cannot resolve this Linux crap I might as well go back to Windows coz there no issues, well except virus infection coming back

 

tried chkdsk says command not found... Am getting pissed now xS

 

I knew I hated Linux for a reason ugh... xS

Saying it errors without an error message is not helpful. Disk size shouldn't be an issue, I have 3 TB drives as well.

A quick google suggests to me you're getting an error saying the volume is corrupted and you should run chkdsk. chkdsk is a Windows utility so it makes sense that you cannot run that on Linux.

[TechXero]

Just now, tikker said:

Saying it errors without an error message is not helpful. Disk size shouldn't be an issue, I have 3 TB drives as well.

A quick google suggests to me you're getting an error saying the volume is corrupted and you should run chkdsk. chkdsk is a Windows utility so it makes sense that you cannot run that on Linux.

I was finally able to mount all drives. Now setting up Plex Server adding everything back into it. I just wish I could backup server settings from Windows n import lol. 

[tikker]

11 minutes ago, TechXero said:

I was finally able to mount all drives. Now setting up Plex Server adding everything back into it. I just wish I could backup server settings from Windows n import lol. 

A necessary evil  Shouldn't have to again for a long time after this though, depending on how much free space there's left.

[TechXero]

1 hour ago, tikker said:

A necessary evil  Shouldn't have to again for a long time after this though, depending on how much free space there's left.

I am running low on space but will be adding an 8tb drive soon. Saving up for one. I also wish I could use Mint as my main OS on Gaming rig but alas all my apps n games are windows only. Invested too much in it xS

 

Quote

[Movies]
    path = /mnt/D2D851AAD8518D9B
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[Movies v2]
    path = /mnt/760E4B0D0E4AC639
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[BluRay Rips v1]
    path = /mnt/5A22DB2D22DB0CBF
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[BluRay Rips v2]
    path = /mnt/069CDDEC9CDDD671
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[TV Shows / UltraHD]
    path = /mnt/wwn-0x5000c500a2023c06-part2
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[Essentials]
    path = /mnt/38E0F150E0F114BA
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[Game ISOs v1]
    path = /mnt/01D0BFAEEDB3C260
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

[Game ISOs v2]
    path = /mnt/98EED51DEED4F50A
    read only = No
    guest ok = Yes

 

[wasab]

Usb stick? Does that work? You can use WebDAV. I use it to share files between my iPhone X and my Linux laptop.