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Installing Jellyfin Media Server: Attempt 1

A project log for Raspberry Pi 400 Daily Driver

Learning to use a Raspberry Pi 400 laptop as an everyday computer and sharing the results.

dustinDustin 11/17/2021 at 16:430 Comments

Having used Jellyfin o this Pi 400 under Raspberry Pi OS, I know it can work very well. However, I could not get it to install now that I'm running Pop!_OS 21.10, or whatever version it is. It turns out that Jellyfin only supports the LTS versions of Ubuntu and Ubuntu based OSs, the latest being 20.04, which this is not. I wouldn't give up this OS for Jellyfin though, as much as I love running a media server from my Pi. I just found out there is a way to enable hardware accelerated video transcoding as well, but that will have to wait until I get it running.

There may be a way though: Docker. I have never used Docker, but have been curious for a few years now. I'll look into what it will take to run, and  if it would even work on the Pi. If so, I will give it a try. I just worry about the overhead of a media server and Docker both running on the Pi's already stressed hardware. It's a capable little machine, but is already rather slow. I'm hoping hardware acceleration will become available on the Pi4/400 for Pop!_OS soon, as that would smooth out the entire experience quite a bit. Until then, I shall patiently wait on things to load and appear on screen.

Without Jellyfin running on the Pi, I can still access the media on my old laptop, which runs 24/7 and hosts a Jellyfin server with my full collection of media. That may be for the best as that laptop can easily transcode my media for easy playback on the meager hardware of the Pi 400.

The Pi is still running quite hot these days, and I suspect it's due to the fact that the Pidock isn't letting the heat escape very well. I'll be tearing it down to install fans here soon.

Other than the Jellyfin issues, the experience has still been very positive. I am typing this on the Pi now, and it feels perfectly natural to me. I often forget I'm using a Raspberry Pi...a wonderful feeling.

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