Comment by AndroidKitKat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AndroidKitKat | Hacker News Reader

I've got a slew of different computers doing different things. All of them are networked together via Tailscale.

Ubuntu 22.04 Server for the host, everything else runs in LXC containers. This is all setup on ZFS.

- https://znc.in/ IRC bouncer

- https://caddyserver.com/ Caddy Webserver for a few personal websites

- https://github.com/AndroidKitKat/waifupaste.moe/ My personal pastebin

- https://transmissionbt.com/ Torrent client that I actually use for Linux ISOs. Primarily seed different versions of Ubuntu and the latest Arch. I am looking to seed other, lesser-seeded distros, too.

- It also runs Samba

A second, dedicated computer also running Ubuntu Server 22.04. It only runs https://pleroma.social for me and a few of my friends.

A third computer, this time an M1 Mac Mini that is my Plex box. It's running the latest version of macOS Ventura and runs all the *arrs and qBittorrent. It also runs Plex itself, because it's one of the only computers that I found that was low power enough but still supported hardware transcoding in Plex. I've been meaning to find a replacement for it running Linux + an AMD GPU (I have an rx470 sitting around somewhere), but no real good deals have turned up.

Your hypothetical new plex box does not need a discrete GPU. Plex makes really good use of Intel Quick Sync, and transcode quality has been indistinguishable or better than NVIDIA since about 5th gen. A Celeron G4900 (8th-gen dual core, 3300 passmark) has been benched as capable of 21 simultaneous 1080p transcodes.[0]

TL;DR: pick up a NUC knockoff with an >8th gen celeron or i3; it'll handle anything a casual household can throw at it.

[0] https://forums.serverbuilds.net/t/guide-hardware-transcoding... this is far and away the most comprehensive hardware guide for plex servers.

The place you specification is a thread posted in 2019 talking about a Dell prebuolg. Do you mind posting the link for the nucs? Or is it in that thread somewhere? Or is that dell actually a nuc.

The thread has the benchmarks, links to ebay searches, and lists of prebuilt machines (like the dells) that meet the requirements, since they're often the cheapest way to meet the spec (according to TFA). you may have to scroll up.

I just searched ebay for used celeron NUCs, and got lots of options like this one, with a 9th gen Celeron, for a hundred bucks. NB that the generation matters much more than the CPU, but some operations are still done by the CPU so if you can get an i3 or i5 it will make a marginal difference.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/115640978606?hash=item1aecbd4cae%3A...

The second you want multiple streams of higher quality then 1080p 10mbs you will want a dedicated card. I got a <200$ old Quattro card (can't remember which) and it can handle pretty much everything I've thrown at it now.

4k TVs are common, planning for 1080p use is a mistake at this point imo.

This is very true, QuickSync falls over very easily when trying to transcode even a single 4k stream.

Depends on the details of your transcode:

- what's the source/destination quality?

- what's the container format? Quicksync doesn't support them all; even the newest gen is missing av1 and VP9 IIRC. But then, the same can be said for discrete GPUs.

- what filters are you applying. Many (most?) filters are CPU bound, which will kill you really quick.

But for supported formats without filtering, 12g Intel quicksync is regularly benchmarked at 4-6 streams.

One should always measure internet advice against one's actual use case. Personally I would argue that if you have a library of 8K video and more than 4 4K devices, you don't qualify as a "regular" home user. But of that's the case, hardware up my friend!

10th-gen i5 could not handle a single stream with most of the 4k content I tried, even though it was benchmarked as working. So if you're trying to transcode from varying sources I would imagine most people will end up wanting a discrete GPU.

If you're ripping your own content and can ensure that everything is set up right so that the integrated GPU can handle it, sure, it will probably work.

That being said they could have made giant strides in this area on 11th-12th gen, I have no idea.

As I mentioned elsewhere, check the details of that transcode you tried. Are you doing tone mapping? That happens on the CPU (even with many discrete GPUs). Is it in a supported container format? Did you validate that the GPU was being used for the transcode?

Other 10th gen I5 users get multiple simultaneous 4k streams going at > 1x speed. Even with tone mapping it should only use like 45% CPU for a single stream.

Unfortunately the difference between software and hardware development cycles means that when you're on data formats that came to prominence in the last 2 years, even the newest hardware may not support it yet.

Or I could just solve the problem by putting an old 1070 in the box and not have to babysit something I have literally zero interest in.

Sure, it's always cheaper to use the hardware you've got than to buy something new! And you don't lose much: AV1 and VP9 compatibility the same, and probably your home doesn't use more than NVIDIA's maximum of 3 simultaneous transcodes anyway. And IIRC that's about the maximum 4k transcode throughput of a 1070 regardless.

Personally I moved from NVIDIA to quicksync exactly because I felt NVIDIA required too much babysitting. Driver compatibility, interactive mode updates, patches and patch compatibility... In comparison the intel driver felt like a cake walk. But you should definitely go with your own comfort level, especially for the price point!

> NVIDIA required too much babysitting

This is on a headless box so thankfully I've never run into any of those issues, I just install their driver and pass the GPU through to my Docker container.

1) if your device plays 4k, then what are you transcoding from? That's going to be the determining factor, not the 4k output stream. Certainly in a home situation, that's likely to be direct stream. If your source files are 8K or higher, I wouldn't consider you a normal home user.

2) quicksync on a 10g or newer cpu is benchmarked at 4-6 4k simultaneous streams, but a lot depends on the details: container format in particular matters a lot, and so do your transcode options. Color matching for example, is only ever done on CPU. And IIRC AV1 and VP9 are not supported by quicksync (or older discrete GPUs).

That said, it's completely correct that you should measure all advice against your actual output device capabilities and source quality.

Do you automate your Linux ISO seeding? Like getting updated torrents when a new version is released. I have been thinking about this from time to time, and haven't come up with a solution other than scraping.

I pretty much update things manually when I think of it (usually every ~2 months or so) or when I am downloading a new version for whatever reason (like to flash yet another computer I picked up). I've been looking for something to do in my downtime , so I might see if I can whip something up to automate updates, could be a fun project.

Right now I have have changedection.io call a huginn webhook to alert me when a new release is up.

I just do this. Update the ubuntu line every 2 years or so. This runs as a cronjob on my synology with the working directory set to a directory that the Synology "Download Station" is watching. It picks up the torrents and does its thing. I come in every now and then and clean out the dot releases. It's not the best but it's not the worst either.

  #!/bin/bash
  wget -nH --cut-dirs=4 -r -l1 --no-parent -R "*.tmp" -A "*.torrent" https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/bt-dvd/
  wget -nH --cut-dirs=4 -r -l1 --no-parent -R "*.tmp" -A "*.torrent" https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/bt-cd/
  wget -nH --cut-dirs=4 -r -l1 --no-parent -R "*.tmp" -A "*.torrent" https://releases.ubuntu.com/22.04/
  rm *-DVD-{2,3}.iso.torrent debian-mac-*.torrent *.tmp *.loaded

Wow, thanks!

Much simpler than my glue using changedetection.io and huginn.

I also learned some new tricks with wget.

For others interested: https://explainshell.com/explain?cmd=wget+-nH+--cut-dirs%3D4...

> Torrent client that I actually use for Linux ISOs

It's okay boss, plenty of us pirate stuff too. You can just admit it.

Maybe you do, but some of us are actually, unironically, torrenting Linux distros.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com