I thought this video was rather interesting, because at 12:27, the presenter crunches the numbers to find out how many years it would take for a new computer purchase to be more environmentally friendly (in regards to total CO2 expended) compared to using a less efficient used model.
Depending on the specific use case, it could take as little as 3 years to breakeven in terms of CO2 if both systems were at max power draw forever, and as long as 30 if the systems are mostly at idle.
That’s exactly the setup I want, but I’m a little lost. Any good guides you can suggest?
I know generally Linux well enough, but I know fuck all about docker
Kodi install instructions are here
I don’t use docker, I use lubuntu with normal packages. So for example Kodi is just installed from the Team Kodi PPA repository (which, granted, is outdated, but it works fine and I don’t need the latest and greatest) and just set it up to be auto-started when X starts so that on the TV it’s as if Kodi is the interface of that machine.
Qbittorrent is just the server only package (qbittorrent-nox) which I control remotelly via its web interface and the rest is normal stuff like Samba.
After the inital set up, the actual linux management can be done remotelly via ssh.
That said, LibreELEC is a Linux distro which comes with Kodi built-in (it’s basically Kodi and just enough Linux to run it), so assuming it’s possible to install more stuff in it might be better - I only found out about it when I had my setup running so never got around to try it. LibreELEC can even work in weaker hardware such as a Raspberry Pi or some of its clones.
Also you can get Kodi as a Flatpak which works out of the box in various Linux distros so if you need the latest and greatest Kodi plus a full-blown Linux distro for other stuff you might do the choice of distro based on supporting flatpack and being reasonably lightweight (I actually originally went for Lubuntu exactly because it uses a lightweight Window Manager and I expected that N100 mini-pc to need it, though in practice the hardward can probably run a lot more heavy stuff than that, though lighter stuff means the CPU load seldom goes up significativelly hence the fan seldom turns on and so the thing is quiet most of the time and you only hear the fan spinning up and then down again once in a while even in the Summer).
As for docker, there are a lot of instructions out there on how to install Kodi with Dockers, but I never tried it.
Also you might want to get a remote like this, which is a wireless remote with a USB adapter, not because of the air-mouse thing (frankly, I never use it) but simply because the buttons are mapped to exactly the shortcuts that Kodi uses, so using it with Kodi in Linux is just like using a dedicated remote for a TV Media Box - in fact all those thinks are keyboard shortcuts (that remote just sends keypresses to the PC when you press a button) and they keyboard shortcuts for media players seem to be a standard.
One advantage of a raspberry pi is the possibility of using the TV remote to control Kodi due to HDMI CEC compatibility.
Well, the N100 does have a lot more breathing space in terms of computing power, so it’s maybe a better bet for something you want to use for a decade or more, and that remote control I linked to above does work fine, except for the power button (which will power your Linux off but won’t power it back on).
I actually tried an Android TV Box (which is really just and SBC in the same range of processing power as the Pi) for this before going for the Mini PC and it was simply not as smooth operating.
That Mini-PC has enough computing power room (plus the right processing extensions) that I can be torrenting over OpenVPN on a 1Gb/s connection whilst watching a video from a local file and it’s not at all noticeable on the video playback.
What are you using for storage?
External 2.5" HDDs connected via USB for longer term bulk storage and using it as a NAS, a smaller internal NVME SSD for the OS and a larger one (but SATA, so slower) for the directory were torrents go to.
The different drive performances fit my usage pattern just fine whilst optimizing price per GB.
External 3.5" would be cheaper for bulk storage but the 2.5" are a leftover from when I was more constrained in terms of physical space.
Kodi is a graphical app, like Firefox, so you won’t use docker for it.
It’s the other half of the home server that’s giving me docker trouble, the *arr stack; I hadn’t actually gotten to the stage of trying to set Kodi up yet
What problem are you having? Docker is very straightforward, just copy the compose file and run a command.