Recommended mini linux device for streaming to TV
from belit_deg@lemmy.world to linux@lemmy.ml on 06 Sep 16:55
https://lemmy.world/post/35531726
from belit_deg@lemmy.world to linux@lemmy.ml on 06 Sep 16:55
https://lemmy.world/post/35531726
Looking for a simple mini device that I can plug into TV for streaming stuff via browser/jellyfin and similar, with hdmi and control via bluetooth keyboard/mouse. What do you guys recommend?
Would this be powerful enough for example? www.komplett.no/product/…/acer-revo-box-mini-pc
EDIT: lemmy is awesome, thanks to you I’ll save myself a ton of work and/or costly mistakes
threaded - newest
an old laptop if you have one first, then one of them intel nucs. intel is better a trancoding or some such thing.
Thx, will try with an old dell xps13 in the meantime!
Exactly. Reuse some old, unused computer. Especially if it’s just for streaming content. Nearly anything can do it and it’ll reduce e-waste.
I use a Raspberry Pi 5 with LibreELEC
same here, with NVMe-Board
Thx for the tip!
If you ever want to buy raspberry pi, don’t forget to get a cooler either passive or active. Those things gets hot quickly without a cooler.
Honestly I’ve got the kids bedroom tv on a Pi 3 running LibrElec just fine. Kodi isn’t that resource intensive so it works great. But if you’re feeling fancy setting up a db to hold all your info so you can share it on multiple end really is nice. I love being able to stop a movie in the living room because I’m getting tired and pick it up in the bedroom at the exact same spot.
The shared backend db with MariaDB was always janky for me. I switched to using Jellyfin for the backend, which tbf could be overkill if you just need the watch states synced.
That is pretty expensive nowadays, if OP wants to go that expensive, getting a mini PC with the latest intel N150. The pi 5 doesn’t even have hardware AV1 decoding. By the time you have all of the pi accessories, it is not much of a price difference, but defi itely a performance difference.
amzn.eu/d/85cytyZ
Plus you get benefits like actual storage instead of a separately bought SD card, more RAM, 2.5G ethernet, and HDMI2.1 & USB–C displayport.
Then you slap Linux on it (and also hope that plasma bigscreen is a success in the near future) and you have a very reliable 4K HTPC that can decode anything you throw at it. It has enough horsepower to be a home server at the same time, unlike a pi while also having just a bit higher idle power usage (2W or so).
Been using Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB of RAM, and swapping between Android 16 (KonstaKANG's AOSP fork) for Grayjay and NewPipe, and some random Linux distro for Kodi and other offline stuff.
So far working nicely.
Thx for the tip!
BTW you can use Waydroid to run Android apps on Linux.
(Thinking aloud) Wonder if it works in ARM devices and with programs that require constant connection... 👀
Thanks! Will be cooking something now =D
It works on ARM and it can run in the background if you want it to.
The mini PC you ask about might lack a bit of RAM and SSD but I think it’s good enough for how you plan to use it. The only drawback I see here depending on how you plan to use it, is that if you don’t have another device on which you can store your media you will be short on storage very quick.
I recently bought a cheap NAS for storage + a mini PC to stream medias to my local devices through jellyfin and couldn’t be happier. If you can look the geekom air12 lite mini PC with the N150 CPU, it’s what I got, havent had much trouble to set it up and it’s cheap for what it offers imo.
Another advice : ask yourself if you think your setup will evolve in the future and try to imagine how you want it to evolve, if your solution isn’t adjustable enough you might have a hard time changing every part of your setup and do it all again.
Thanks for the tip! I actually have an old intel celeron running as a server in the basement, so the bare minimum for this is playing media from the network. But, being able to play simple games could also be fun, so have to think about that one for a bit!
Þe latter is really þe best deal: AMD's þe better CPU, 12 cores, integrated Ryzen graphics, 16GB, 500GB NVMe, and both memory and NVMe are trivial to upgrade. I used it as a desktop, until I got a more recent one. Even þough it's a mobile CPU, it still seems like an insanely good deal, to me.
But þe first does þe trick for half þe price if you know you're only using it to stream.
Never heard of the brand/model, thanks! Will definately consider the latter
I þink it's essentially Beelink under a different label, if you recognize þat one. I'd never heard of þem until I started buying þem. Which is twice; I got a Ryzen 7 version þe second time. I'm very happy wiþ boþ.
Older 10th gen Intel NUCs go for cheap on eBay, with memory and storage – close in price to a Raspberry Pi 5, but more powerful, active cooling without having to buy a kit, and may have greater longevity. An alternative to a Pi if you’re looking for one.
After getting an NUC, what would you install to make it more streaming UI friendly?
Or are you suggesting to just use the tv as a large monitor and stream via websites and browser?
I use an N95 mini pc, I have it set up with xubuntu (compositing turned off), and it’s loaded with Kodi (+Jellyfin add-ons), and used with a USB remote control. It’s a super-smooth. I cast music to Kodi from my phone with Symfonium.
Gotcha, so remove windows, install Linux, then install Kodi and other programs and it should function like an out-of-the-box streaming device?
Fedora and plasma run well on my nucs. One is about 7 years old and handles all the minimal things like streaming and containerized services really well.
That’s what I do. I have a bunch of .desktop files that just open Firefox in kiosk mode to whichever website I want, and a bunch of .PNG files to make them look like apps. I installed them system-wide.
I’m a pretty big KDE Stan but I decided to give Gnome a go since Plasma Bigscreen is virtually impossible to install for a normal user at the moment. Its not perfect but it gets the job done, and I love the basic parental controls it has. Still absolutely awful in terms of settings though.
My experience with Intel NUCs is that longevity is their greatest weakness. Usually burn themselves out in a few years. Prospects for repair being slim. I’m not sure if Pis are any better, but I haven’t been impressed.
How do they burn out? Anecdotal, but I’ve had one running 24/7 for about 6 years now I think and only needed to swap out the fan.
Bad thermal management. Too much heat for too small of space without enough cooling.
Huh. Maybe I just run mine lighter. Streaming shouldn’t take much though. Also they’re actively cooled. I’ll keep that in mind though in case mine die unexpectedly.
Yeah, luck is a factor for sure. And if you find one for cheap enough it probably doesn’t matter. Personally, I’d rather just build a SFF PC with a mini-ITX board. It’ll be slightly bigger than a NUC, but at least the parts are all off the shelf and replaceable when something inevitably goes wrong.
If you’re not allergic to Amazon, a FireTV stick might be enough, at least for Jellyfin, Youtube/Netflix etc. (not sure about streaming from the browser).
Literally anything can be a streaming target. You don’t need a full on PC. RPi works well.
I use RPi5 for this and have it hooked up to steam link.
can stream at 4k with no issue.
What about an Odroid N2+? That could run coreelec or Android well? For Jellyfin its great, though you’re very like going to run into issues if you want the likes of Netflix on it.
Do you need it to do realtime video transcoding of high resolution video (>1080p)? If so, you may need a video card to do it efficiently. Otherwise, that should be more than sufficient. I know others have recommended a raspberry pi, but I don’t think jellyfin supports arm CPUs, though I could be wrong. So you’d have to run it in a virtualization layer and that would increase the hardware resources and may or may not be OK on a pi, but likely would not be as energy efficient as a pi usually is and almost definitely will have trouble with realtime transcoding.
To get around the realtime transcoding you can either make sure your devices support the codecs of the videos you are playing, or you can use a separate device to do batch transcoding of the files before giving them to jellyfin. I haven’t implemented jellyfin yet, though it’s next on my list, so I’m not sure if there are ways to do background transcoding inside it.
If you’re not hung up on Jellyfin, check whatever streaming software for it’s hardware recommendations, but Jellyfin is pretty good overall from my playing with it. It’s not the lowest resource using system, though.
I read OP’s question as him streaming from a Jellyfin server to this box, not using this box as a Jellyfin server itself. Could be wrong, though.
Also, it’s my understanding that transcoding is 100% about hardware support for the codecs and that integrated graphics that have it (TL;DR: 12th gen Intel) are going to perform pretty much just as well as even a high-end discrete gaming GPU for that task.
(I say “gaming” GPU because I was reading about the Arc Pro B50 the other day and it has two separate sets of transcoding hardware, so it presumably would actually perform better in terms of the number of simultaneous streams it could handle. But short of something like that, it apparently doesn’t make much difference.)
OK so this is just the client and there’s another server doing Jellyfin server. That changes things. So on the client side yes if all clients support all major codecs then you’re good. Issue comes if one client like a smart TV, this device, or older android device doesn’t have it, then you have to transcode or the client has to software decode which something like a raspberry pi or smart TV is going to have trouble with.
Your old laptop & a generic bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo unit.
That is my setup. :)
Are there any better options for keyboard trackpad combo than the Logitech k400 yet?
Looks at lap
Logitech K400 still kicking it! (No clue if there is a better one, but it’s going to be hard to beat the classic)
I’ve been clinging to my 10 year old Logitech diNovo Mini, but when this thing kicks the bucket dunno how I’m gonna replace it. Trackpad has been pretty good, and I like the fact that it turns off and is protected when the clamshell is closed so I don’t accidentally press stuff when it gets lost in the couch. We really need an open source mini keyboard so people can make their own and customize buttons, etc.
<img alt="1000013385" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4e33ccc8-24e3-410a-8eb7-2c6e39f8b01d.jpeg">
The K400 is everywhere. I have one; my friend has one - I can mention it to fellow geeks, and everyone knows what it is.
Cool, using this setup now.
Thinking of ways to make it more friendly for my SO and guests coming to visit or babysit etc, who are not used to linux (gnome). Any tips there?
Top of mind is auto open browser on startup with fixed tabs for relevant streaming services. But could also be a simple wrapper of some kind, with UI similar to kodi, plex, jellyfin etc - but for accessing content on web.
The problem with a wrapper as you put it, specifically one running on Linux, is DRM. The only way I know of to achieve the desired Widevine encryption level is running the service in a tab in Chrome. Not any other browser, not even Chromium.
Of course you could just bypass all that nonsense by pirating your media, and have a nice easy interface consolidating titles from all streamers - even retaining a network badge so they can see where a given popular show is airing - like what I’ve set up in Kodi for myself as well as boomer relatives.
Other than that I’d recommend Flirc for input via remote (or LIRC if you have a supported remote already and don’t mind some extra configuration)
i use stremio, nice and easy setup. i pay for a debrid service with usenet to get a better experience though.
The Kodi add-on I’m using uses torrentio in the backend, but has way more customisation than the stremio app + trakt integration, autoplay using preset quality filters etc
Stremio app is more seamless experience when there’s no hits for the title already in debrid cache but that’s pretty rare these days even on torbox
i have torrentio, usenet, and other backups, autoplay, trakt integration etc. it has been getting even better recently. i also use torbox.
what customisation does it have? i use aiostreams to bundle my addons and it has a ton of customization for catalogues, filtering, searching etc. i can usually click on the first stream and its the best.
i didnt like kodis ui when i used it, felt like navigating folders
A custom skin with widgets on the home screen pulling from Trakt, TMDB, IMDB etc lists - here I have the “New” category set to “Trending Recent Shows” from Trakt to highlight actually new stuff, whereas “Trending” category is set to “Trending This Week” from TMDB to cover returning shows. This approach inevitably leads to duplicates but at least covers everything important without the perpetual The Office, Breaking Bad etc results. When a title is highlighted, network badge is shown where available. The categories that point to individual episodes autoplay upon selection, the ones that point to series go to the ‘folder’ type browser
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/4cbacc3f-07b5-4635-8f60-b77d7ca8be89.webp">
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/ddc134bb-0ca6-4dd5-8b60-1333cac5771f.webp">
Search page overriding default kodi search, categorised by movie / tv show, also includes trakt lists.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/b6bb0659-4f96-43e8-80c8-3196195042a2.webp">
Heaps of navigation and backend customisation, too much to show or mention but some notable things being the play next dialog including display prompt being based on end of subtitles track (with time-based backup), customised context menu including option to play trailer (displayed via long press on remote, requires youtube API key for HD trailer playback), codec prioritisation/blacklist, overriding local watched/unwatched status with trakt, partial playback resume including auto resume option
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/edb545b0-7cf3-4e69-aae5-04063f928102.webp"><img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/fce755ce-6e97-4168-9958-cc489cd416e8.webp"><img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/68a217a7-edb5-4462-983b-121186dee54b.webp"><img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/ef207e91-70e3-454e-9b31-204f98b11670.webp">
FWIW these examples are on a minimally configured proof of concept instance, when I set this up for family I need to test and tune it a bunch to ensure codec compatibility with the device/display, auto resume if that’s the behaviour they want etc. Base Kodi also allows to prefer non-hearing impaired subtitle tracks, audio tracks in a specific language or original language etc. The end result being they get what they want spoonfed to their home screen the vast majority of the time, and otherwise can find it easily with the search without hassling me lol. In the worst case scenario I need to show them how to rescrape/source select from the context menu, but that’s only happened once where an older title’s only cached release had russian-only audio. The rest of their time they can just choose an episode/movie without having to understand any specifics about whether the top result is the best stream or not. It’s enough that I’m still finding more UX improvements to add, years later.
I’d love to have this set up for usenet but don’t have any issues using torrent cache on torbox essential so just can’t really justify the cost difference
And this is precisely why piracy is on the rise. People will pay for convince/features, as we see with steam and music streaming.
The video industry has yet to figure this out.
I use a Beelink SER5, but that’s because I also plan to set it up to be a retro game console, in addition to streaming.
I use a Dell Wyze 5070 Thin Client. It costs around 60€, I run DietPi on it because that shit is dope.
I finally got round to buying the Beelink EQ14 I’d promised myself. Sips electricity & handles 4k content. Can’t comment re usage as I havent got round to setting it up yet. I believe it shipped with Win11 but I’ll be putting linux on it
I’ll double the Beelink recco. Using a SER5 for a few years now as dual boot windows and linux as an HTPC. Zero issues with PC at 4k and 5.1. My only issue is Dirac doesn’t support linux, but that is neither here nor there.
go to wal mart and get an ONN device. The Pro 4k is $50, Android 14. Will run Plex, Tvmate, vlc, netflix apple tv, and any other TV / Video app you want to run.
Can you say anything about privacy?
Lol. Lmao even.
If it has google play services on it, at all, there is absolutely no privacy.
If you can manage to stick to an F-droid+Aurora+Obtainium setup (maybe with IzzyOndroid enabled in F-droid), you can probably pull off privacy, but in my experience there are at least three major streaming services ive encountered that refuse to run if Google Play Services aren’t running and you can’t pass the SafetyNet authenticity/security check thing (which raspberry pi is missing the firmware and hardware to be able to support.) Netflix being the biggest of them, I think Disney Plus has issues, and it’s been a while since I tried but either crunchyroll or hbo Max gave me a hard time.
Who said anything about streaming services? What an absurdly silly way to throw away money in this day and age. In this economy?
I kid, but yeah OP was asking about browser/jellyfin streaming.
Browser+jellyfin is easy then, but again you need to make sure you’re not using google play services. That shit calls home like crazy.
ASUS NUC’s are great for simple self hosting needs, got a 13th gen NUC myself with an i7, Proxmox as the host with a headless Debian 13 VM for a virtualized environment.
I use a raspberry pi 3 A+. The only thing that sucks is no h265 support.
I tried this with zeroPi and jellyfin, bit the Pi seemed constantly overwhelmed with displaying videos, so I got about a frame every 2 seconds (might have been a pi3b). Have you got any clue what the issue might be? It depended a lot on the particular file I wanted to play as well though, but I wasn’t able to find a pattern. Of two matroska/mp4 files one worked well, the other stuttered as hell.
The only thing I have experience with is that the pi’s struggle with newer codecs, like h264 runs perfectly but any video that is h265 is a slide show, if you get an image at all. So I have to be really careful which version of a video I download. It sucks because h264 files are significantly larger due to its inferior compression.
www.komplett.no/…/asus-nuc-14-essential-n150
Vi bruker mengder av disse som avspillere for infoskjermer. Har brukt intel sine også, kjørt linux på de siden 2016.
Does anyone have a suggestion for something that can be used with a remote? AndroidTV boxes don’t seem to be a consistent thing anymore beyond NVIDIA shields…
Why not just use a bluetooth or 2.4g remote?
I’ve tried Kodi on librelec, the old Xbox launcher. It has an app called kodi remote: your phone is the remote.
Currently I’m using an old 2013 laptop with Debian and xfce. I’ve installed KDE connect on it, and it also has an app KDE connect that turns your phone into the remote.
The main advantage of the remote on your phone is you can type text, copy/paste URLs, passwords and whatnot
Might be worth looking into FLIRC USB
I bought one of these a while back but could never get it working. Skill issue probably 😅 I’ll try it out again!
I used one for a work project. They are pretty nice for a spite project lol
Random fun fact: back in college, my girlfriend’s best friend (and my best friend’s girlfriend) was named Elisa. This being the early 2000s, I used an old school flip phone that had T9 for text entry. But “Elisa” wasn’t in the T9 dictionary, so I would hit 3-5-4-7 and it would prompt “Elis”—presumably expecting an “e” after—but once I hit that last 2, it would change to “flirc.”
It’s interesting that that’s actually become a thing now.
I use a Pi running LibreElec and it can be controlled by my LG TV down the HDMI cable. It’s the CEC protocol. Look into that.
Intel NUCs typically have an IR receiver
An Airmouse is a gamechanger.
Its a TV-remote-style device that works like a Wii remote to control the mouse, usually has a keyboard on the backside, and connects to a USB 2.4ghz or Bluetooth receiver depending on the model you get.
I got a $20 Rii and a $10 other brand one to try out. Both are fine. I like the buttons on the Rii better but it has no backlight which sucks because I’m usually watching TV in bed at 9pm. The $10 one’s keyboard also responds faster so I can actually speed type.
Bazzite + gamepad
The Google TV boxes (onn) from Walmart are a solid option. $49 for the Pro is an excellent price for the hardware.
Formuler Z11 Pro Max
I used this Beelink as a steam OS machine, I’m sure it could handle streaming.
I’ve just set up Jellyfin on an Intel NUC with a Celeron J4025, 8GB ram and 1TB ssd and it works flawlessly, can handle at least 3 4k (hardware accelerated) transcodes (didn’t test with more). No tone mapping tho, its pretty slow. The thing cost me around 140 eur.
If you really want tone mapping and don’t have the budget/space for a dgpu I heard the Intel N100/N150 mini pcs (like you picked) are great. I would be a little worried about the ram tho.
Mele quieter 4c has been really good to me. I was using a celeron nuc, it worked fine, but for quiet moments in videos i could hear the fan. It wasnt obnoxious, but once i noticed it i couldnt ignore it. Mele is passively cooled and the n100 is more than adequate for 4k.
I scored an embedded box 3000 we use in the bedroom
What do I recommend? Even a used desktop or laptop would be perfect to run Linux and have a TV PC. Cheaper and also just as effective. All hail Windows 11 for making the future brighter on that front too; with Microsoft pushing forced obsolescence!
I had a bunch of parts kicking around. Literally pieced together a PC with an old FX 6300 CPU and an RX 570 for my mom to watch her live news and TubiTV.
Yeah, tons of businesses are and will be offloading intel 7th gen and older computers.
Cool. Well, I am deleting this shithole of an account. I’m already getting banned from other communities, because people can’t handle the hard truths about me pointing out their smartphone addiction. Meanwhile, they want to complain more about how Google is abusing them. Well, I took the initiative; I went back to a flip phone with no mobile data.
I’m already getting the impression of mainstream social media snowflakes on this platform as a whole. I really hate what the Internet and people on it has become. You can’t say anything and must walk on eggshells. Strong reminder to not bother with any social platforms at all. Makes me glad that I block all mainstream crud with my Pi Hole server and filter search results with my hosted SearXNG instance.
Dell Optiplex 3050
Lenovo m720
HP whatever with a 7th gen Intel
All can be had for $50 ish
If you have an android TV, there’s a Jellyfin app for TV on there. Otherwise we use a Chromecast with Google TV dongle/remote that works pretty well.
This is what I use too. But, I would like to not have a Google device as part of my chain. (I say on my Pixel phone, with stock android).
I agree it’s not ideal, but they’re cheap devices that require little setup. Its not like you need to pay a subscription fee to use them for Jellyfin, so I’m okay with it on balance.
Replied from my Pixel phone with stock android as well.
its still google tv but the onn boxes work great and you can easily setup a custom launcher etc.
minisforum um890 has been working well with nobara. sleep works on 6.15.
I’ve seen these MeLe sticks before that are intriguing: www.amazon.com.au/…/B0DK4Z9YSH
what is wrong with an android box?
You cannot install everything you could on regular android and if you manage to they won’t be remote friendly. Linux apps however can support controllers. Moroever, android boxes come with a default bloated launcher and even though you can switch it a lot of things stay unremovable
Also, in my experience of trying Android boxes first and ending up with a Mini-PC with Linux, the Android boxes which are cheaper than basic Mini-PCs like the one with an N100 that I have, are underpowered, and the one’s which aren’t underpowered cost about the same as the Mini-PC.
Further, you can install all manner of services running on the background on the Linux machine: mine works as TV Box with Kodi as the frontend that’s displayed on my TV, but it’s also working as my home NAS and runs a bittorrent server with a web interface on top of an always on VPN, all of which uses very little of its computing power. I manage the “linuxy” stuff remotely via web-interfaces and SSH whilst in the living room were it is I actually have a remote for it and use it just like a regular TV Box.
This in addition to as you pointed out the Android stuff being locked down and often bloated.
I really would advise people against an Android TV box, but if one really wants the lower consumption of those (they do consume half as much power as my Mini-PC, with TDPs around 8W or less to the Mini-PC’s 15W) best get an SBC and a box for it, and then install Libreelec on it or a full linux distro (often the manufacturers have a Linux distro for those and there’s always Armbian),
I was in a similar boat. I’ve been using a Ryzen 5000-based mini PC for about two years now. It’s running:
Debian for stability
Flex Launcher for the 10ft TV UI
Flex Launcher has shortcuts for Plex HTPC, Netflix in a full screen Chrome page, etc.
An AirMouse Remote with a keyboard on the back and basic controls up front. It has 5 programmable IR buttons that I have bound to TV Power, TV Input, TV Select, and Sound Bar Vol-/+
My kids also use it for Steam and Retro gaming, so I have it launch ES-DE and Steam Big Picture Mode from Flex Launcher.
Other than the occasional tweaking, it has needed very little and been rock solid for about 2 years now. I have a cheap Android TV set top box still attached for when Grandma goes to use the TV. I can switch inputs and hand them the Google TV remote, but my wife, my kids, and I use the HTPC almost exclusively.
Got myself a NUC11 with Intel Celeron N5105. Could’ve installed the good old Debian, but wanted something a little more exciting, so went with OpenSUSE Leap 16 Beta instead.
Look on eBay for USFF PCs. They’re mini computers the size of paperback books that are designed for use in large organisations, and they’re made by the usual suspects - HP and Dell mostly. Because they get replaced regularly they’re cheap but they’re just regular desktop PC hardware. A ten year old i5 can handle being a 4K media centre no problem and can be had for €/£/$70.
Keep an eye on the HDMI version - 1.4 will only give you 30fps at 4k. You need 2.0 to get 60fps.
Great tip, thanks!
I use one of these which I got from AliExpress along with one of these, though of course it will work fine with mouse and keyboard.
(Please note that I haven’t tested it specifically with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse).
I installed Lubuntu on it because it’s a lighter distro (it will work fine with the full desktop Linux distros, but why waste computing power on fancy window managers for something that’s just a TV Box that’s always showing Kodi) and have it always turned on (the TDP of this is pretty low) with Kodi as interface and its runs perfectly.
It’s sitting on my living room under the TV.
It’s probably a little overpowered, but that means its fan almost never turns on (it’s pretty quiet when it does, but silence is better), so I’m also running a bittorrent server on it with an always on VPN, plus it’s my NAS. There’s room for more if I wanted.
I don’t really understand people advising the more powerful Mini-PCs: they’re way overpowered for the job hence needlessly expensive plus the TDP of their processors is way more than the N100 in this one hence it both consumes more and is a lot less quiet because the fan has to be bigger and running a lot more often to cool that hotter processor down.
PS: Also the downside of using old PCs for this as some recommend is their higher power consumption, even for notebooks, plus they generally don’t really look like a nice TV-Box to have in your living room, which this one does. If you’re going to run it all the time, a low TDP mini-pc will probably quickly pay itself over using an old desktop, longer if versus an old notebook.
I share the general sentiment but lower TDP does not equal lower consumption, any “mobile” ryzen since the series 4000 on Zen 2 (7nm) is more efficient at most tasks than an N100 (10nm TSMC node), and barring specific mobo issues all have in general very low idle consumptions. But their iGPUs are a lot more capable, faster at anything, no need to limit yourself to a lightweight Desktop manager. Shop used and you might get more bang for your buck with an older ryzen mini pc than a newer N100 one.
If the thing is not meant to use as a Desktop, why load it with heavier applications that aren’t delivering anything useful?
No matter how efficient a core is at most tasks, it can’t beat the power savings of not actually running needless code.
My homemade TV Box isn’t running a lightweight desktop because I had to “limit myself”, it’s running one because I’m not losing anything by not having that which I don’t use and if that even just saves a few Watts a week, it still means I’m better off, which is satisfying as I like to design my systems to be efficient.
For fancy Linux Desktop things I have an actual Desktop PC with Linux - the homemade TV Box on my living room is only supposed to let me watch stuff on TV whilst I sit on my sofa.
Further, there are more than one form of efficiency - stuff like the N100 (and even more, the ARM stuff) are designed for power consumption efficiency, whilst desktop CPUs are designed for ops-per-cycle efficiency, which are not at all the same thing: being capable of doing more operations per cycle doesn’t mean something will consume less power in doing so (in fact, generally in Engineering if you optimize in one axis you lose in another) it just means it can reach the end of the task in fewer cycles.
For a device that during peak use still runs at around 10% CPU usage, having the ability to do things a little faster doesn’t really add any value.
Even the series 4000 Zen2 being more optimized for power consumption is only in the context of desktop computers, a whole different world from what the N100 (and even more things like ARM7) were designed to operate in, which is why the former has a TDP of 140W and the latter of 15W (and the ARMs are around 6W). Sure the TDP is a maximum and hence not a precise metric for a specific use case such as using something as a TV Box, but it’s a pretty good indication of how much a core was optimized for power consumption, and 15W vs 140W is a pretty massive distance to expect that any error in using TDP to estimate how the power consumption of those two in everyday use as a TV Box compares would mean that the CPU with 140W TDP consumes less than the one with 15W.
PS: All that said, if the use case was “selfhosting” rather than “TV Box (with a handful of lightweight services on the side)”, you suggestion makes more sense, IMHO.
There are plenty of mobile ryzens with a TDP of 15W, I’m not suggesting a Threadripper for a tv box, that’d be crazy :)
The -U (“ultrabook”) Ryzens are found not only in laptops but also in mini pcs, very efficient (yes even at idle, I have a power meter) are also the -GE and -G APUs despite the higher TDP (35W and 65W) because of their monolithic design. And in mini pcs the system consumes less power compared to putting the same cpus on a beefy ATX motherboard with a hungry chipset and inefficient VRMs.
Intel+TSMC mobile/embedded cpus are also great choices, same concepts apply.
I should have written desktop environment (DE) and not manager (I mixed it up with WM, window managers), btw they’re not just for actual desk-top computers, some are even optimised for the TV (and input with a remote). I misunderstood that you felt a need for a lighter software setup instead of simply preferring it, my bad, and kudos for making sensible choices, bloat is bad. Happy linuxing.
I see, with your clarification that does make more sense.
Frankly I would’ve rather have avoided Intel because, well, they’re Intel, but from what I saw when I looked around, the N100 was an x86 designed for that kind of use, had far more computing power than the dissapointing cheap ARM based Android TV boxes I had tried before (I’ve been using TV Boxes for since well before they were common and the last one was so old that it couldn’t handle newer media anymore, so I started looking around and first tried replacing with with a cheap Android TV box) and I could get a Mini-PC for roughly the same price as a good Android TV box for making my own thing fully under my control (i.e. Linux with my chosen media player and services, rather than a closed Android riddled with bloatware), so I went for it and am happy with the result.
As for desktop environment, in practice the thing just runs Kodi all the time as the frontend, hence is perfect for controlling with a remote, like the one I linked in my original post. Any linux style kind of management I do remotelly from another computers, either from the command line via SSH or via web interfaces. In practice whilst I do have a keyboard and mouse connected to it, they’re very rarelly used.
I later found out that using LibreELEC (a whole Linux distro meant specifically for use as a TV box were Kodi is the frontend) would probably have been an optimal choice for a TV box rather than starting from a light ubuntu variant and customizing it myself, plus LibreELEC would’ve worked just as well on an ARM based SBC (something like an Orange Pi 3) which would’ve been cheaper and would’ve used even less power. That said, I had intended from he start to hang more services from that box (for example, I wanted to replace the NAS “solution” I had in place using my router, which only supported SMBv1) so starting from a more generic Linux distro probably made more sense that using a TV Box specific light distro.
The thing is a bit of a Frankenstein monster on the inside but doesn’t at all look like it when used in my living room to play media on the TV.
I use “Beelink” brand mini PCs for this purpose. (They are the same form factor as your photo.) I have three, and they’re all good. I’ve used multiple distros on them with no compatibility issues, but MX Linux is my daily driver.
They have fans built in, but the cases on the higher end ones are metal, which helps with heat dissipation. The only downside with that is that sometimes USB peripherals get super hot while plugged in, and I had a mouse dongle that would overheat and malfunction. A simple USB hub fixed this problem (the hub itself apparently didn’t mind getting hot).
I use a “Mini Keyboard with touchpad” on the ones connected to TVs. I recommend those as well. Rii brand is decent.
I use RPi4, it works well except with some h265 where it really sucks, laggy video, maybe it is because of the software (I use raspbian+vlc). Otherwise its great, silent, Low consumtion, etc
I use a Pi running LibreElec…basically packages OSMC.
Plug it into a smart TV with HDMI and your tv remote can control the Pi OSMC Interface…no need for a separate remote…I was pleasantly surprised at that.
Some of these words I recognize…
Look up “raspberry pi kodi”. That may or may not help depending on which words you understood
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www.hardkernel.com/…/odroid-m1s-with-4gbyte-ram/
I’ve been using the original m1 running a lineage OS based android TV for a couple years. It’s perfect. I added a nvme drive for a “DVR” in tivimate, but we rarely use it. I use a cheapo 2.4ghz remote from Amazon.
@OP: Which option did you decide on in the end? Reading through the comments as someone in a similar situation, going for a NUC(-like) with Intel n150 and installing fitting Linux distros/software seemed the easiest choice. What was your take-away? :)
my old laptop😅 and a bluetooth keyboard/touchpad. If it is not too noisy and performs well enough, I might make that a dedicated tv device (but then I will have to buy a new laptop lol, I’ve been drooling on framework for a while).
Alternatively one of the n150 options, like you say. In which case I can update this post
Hot take, just get an old Chromecast HD
A laptop.
Had a client who wanted me to setup a geekom mini PC. Very good and reliable. Easy to unscrew and upgrade if needed. Had a crucial memory module and samsung ssd.
I’m running MythTV front/back on a Pi4 with one of those generic handheld keyboards. Power consumption is important to me because I live off solar power in a campervan.
If the Pi4 died tomorrow I’d probably replace it with a ~NUC.
I have been using this since 2020. www.amazon.com/…/B06Y1FJNYP Not powerful by today’s standards but still does the job. It is running Almalinux. For the keyboard, I am using this www.amazon.com/…/B005DKZTMG