I have hassio running on Raspberry Pi3 B+ but I have also Zotac mini PC with i5 processor.
I have zero knowledge about Linux (currently I am running windows 10 on it), but I would like to use Zotac for:
Home assistant (I have read that I have to install “some” (?) linux and docker.ce, then migration is straightforward)
MotionOs or something similar compatible with Home assistant (maybe just motionEye on HA would be enough with more powerfull hardware - currently is useless) - in the near future I would need face recognition and license plate recognition, but I do not have idea what to use)
xbmc to use it as media player (connected via hdmi to TV)
android TV box (or something similar to have it instead of smart TV)
I have a similar setup running ubuntu, hass.io, transmission (torrent client) and samba shares with al my video content that is streamed to my Nvidia Shield. It is al build on a mini itx that I put in my desktop tower that also houses my gaming pc. So 2 pc’s into 1 ^^
The ubuntu one is cooled passively. I notice that for everyday use I only use the ubuntu machine (work, browsing, youtube, tweaking hass.io) and my other setup I only use for gaming.
I have ubuntu running for about 4 weeks now and some things were difficult to setup like samba shares. However, now I have a low-power low-resources daily machine running 24h a day!
Do you have any tips on setting up samba shares with Ubuntu? I’m having some trouble with it. I installed the latest Ubuntu LTS on a laptop, and I have an external USB hard drive (NTFS-formatted) that I would like to share some folders as Samba shares. Did you setup Samba using terminal or through Ubuntu store or somewhere else on the desktop UI?
I shared the folders by going to the folder properties, and enabling share, as well as read/write access, and anonymous access (the files aren’t that important if lost). Whenever I access the Samba shares from a Windows laptop, I can see the folders, but can’t access it. It’s been a pain. I’m guessing the pain comes from recent Windows 10 updates, but I don’t have the time to look into it.
I couldn’t get samba working with nautilus because of a 255 error I think (permissions). So I used this guide: https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-and-configure-samba-on-ubuntu-18-04/
When installing samba in Ubuntu, it creates a user with a different password. Therefore your normal login passwords don’t work. You have to create a new user, set a password for it, edit the smb.conf file where you specify which users and groups are allowed to acces certain shares and then it should work.
Another thing you want to look at is what you are sharing. For some reason I can’t create a samba share of anything that’s not on the same drive where Ubuntu is installed. I found a workaround by mounting the HDD to a folder on the OS drive.
I recommend to share a folder on your OS drive for the first time. When you get that working, then start looking into mounting a drive to a folder. Otherwise you don’t know if the reason something is not working is because of your smb.conf file or because of some other reason.
Unlike Windows it’s more complicated then just right clicking a folder and sharing it… That’s what I don’t like about Linux but with some Googling skills you can always find a way.
Awesome, thanks for the advice. The annoying thing about file sharing in Ubuntu is that it does let you right click a folder and share it, at least that’s what it looks like from the front-end. No error messages or anything when you do it that way. I’d rather not have the front-end option at all if it doesn’t work.