Manjaro is a potential time bomb, delayed repos and AUR don’t always interact well. EndeavourOS is the better Arch fork, especially for beginners that need a smooth introduction.

You can get a USB IR receiver and use software like LIRC to map the inputs of basically any remote you have. Setting it up takes a little effort, but it works great when it’s done.

I would sell a few of them to shore up the budget, then use those funds to build a NAS box. You can buy everything other than drives for a few hundred, less if you have spare parts sitting around.

Exactly. Doesn’t matter if they’re wired or wifi, or where they are, as long as they’re on the same network you’re fine.

If you’re only trying to use Jellyfin at home, you don’t need any reverse proxy or domain. All you need is for both devices to be on the same network, and for the Raspberry Pi to have a fixed internal IP address (through your router settings).

On the Shield, you just give the Jellyfin app that IP address and port number (10.0.0.X:8096) to connect and you’re good to go.

For a NAS, you’re usually concerned with capacity first. And you can’t buy a 20TB m2.

EndeavourOS or raw Arch would both fit that bill, you don’t need to run updates every day just because they’re available. Manjaro delays packages to “increase stability”, but that’s what causes it to break.

You got a remux, which is uncompressed. You can turn those off in Radarr to avoid those surprises.

If you want to fine-tune your file sizes (and quality) further, you can set up custom formats and quality profiles. The Trash Guides explain it well, the “HD Blu-ray + Web” profile on that page is a solid starting point. It’ll usually grab 6-12GB movies, but you can tweak it if you want them smaller.

They’re also surprisingly easy to upgrade for their size. Swapped RAM, CPU, and hard drive in about 15 minutes total on one of mine.

If it was me, I’d just go without parity temporarily and grab another drive for that when I could. A new system should be safe enough for a while, just not forever.

You could do it on the NAS. Qbittorrent is probably the highest-recommended client right now, and it has a web UI that can be accessed from any other device on your network.

That said, I run one of the tiny Thinkcentres as a dedicated torrent and *arrs box. I think I paid $30 for that one, and it has more than enough power for the task.

Given the recent issues with ads, I wouldn’t recommend anything Android/GoogleTV based. A USFF PC will give you better performance for less money, especially if you buy used. You can find 1L X86 boxes for $30-60 on eBay that are perfect for the job.

You might have more success if you dial it back, average users don’t need that deep of an understanding. They just need a functional system that does what they expect it to.

I’ve converted several family members to Linux to ease my own role as their tech support. And it was as simple as preloading things they’d need, showing them what the new browser/email/whatever looked like, showing them the new “app store” (KDE Discover), and telling them to call me if it breaks. Some of them explored further and learned how the system works, others were just happy to click the buttons I showed them. None of them regret the change.

If 2-4 TB makes you think “data hoarder”, you don’t even want to know what the self-proclaimed data hoarders get up to. 10-20 TB drives aren’t insanely expensive, and some of us have several of them.

Yes, that’s how it’s supposedto work if they’re all on the same Docker network (same yaml). In practice, it can be flaky and you’re much better off using ip:port.

If a sysadmin expected me to use vim for every minor config tweak, I wouldn’t want to be on their machines either.

Arch has been daily driver for years, I’m already familiar with the process. There’s an option for a guided system. The default is a terminal with no guidance.

That’s only if you use an automated script, and only if it works. ‘Default’ install is almost entirely manual, other than letting pacman grab what it needs to.

Yup. It’s a very manual install that’ll let you screw it up, so it’s gained that reputation. But it really isn’t bad if you follow the wiki (or have done it before).

The Arch Linux Wiki is an incredible resource, even if you’re running another distro. Most of it is pretty universal (other than specific commands like the package manager), and it explains how everything functions and fits together. If I’m troubleshooting, it’s always my first stop.