Okay, here’s my attempt at writing a blog post in the style you described, focusing on a hypothetical project: “Setting up a Raspberry Pi as a Home Media Server”:
Alright, so I wanted to finally do something with that Raspberry Pi I had lying around. I figured, why not turn it into a little media server for my home? I’d heard it was pretty easy, but, you know, “easy” can be a relative term.
First thing I did was grab the Pi itself – it’s a Raspberry Pi 4, the one with 4GB of RAM. I figured that should be plenty for what I wanted. Then, I needed a microSD card. I had a spare 32GB one, which seemed like enough space to get started. I also made sure I had a power supply – the official Raspberry Pi one is always a safe bet.
Next up, the operating system. I went with Raspberry Pi OS Lite, because I didn’t need a full desktop environment for this project. I downloaded the image from the official website, and then I used BalenaEtcher to flash it onto the microSD card. That part was super straightforward – just select the image, select the card, and hit “Flash!”
Getting it Booted Up
With the microSD card ready, I popped it into the Pi, connected an Ethernet cable (I prefer wired for servers), and plugged in the power supply. It booted up, and I saw a bunch of text scroll by on the connected monitor. I have to connected to a monitor by a HDMI cable first and keyboard to get it work. I did that!
I then logged in with the default username and password (‘pi’ and ‘raspberry’, if you’re curious). First thing I did was change that password! Gotta be safe, you know?
- passwd
typed that in, and followed the prompts. Easy peasy.
Setting up the software
Now for the fun part: installing the media server software. I decided to go with Plex, because I’d used it before and liked it. There are other options like Jellyfin and Emby, but I was already familiar with Plex.
Getting Plex installed wasn’t too bad. There are some tutorials online, but basically, I had to add the Plex repository to my package sources, update the package list, and then install the Plex Media Server package. It was a few commands in the terminal, something like this:
curl */plex-keys/* sudo apt-key add -echo deb */repo/deb public main sudo tee /etc/apt/*.d/*sudo apt updatesudo apt install plexmediaserver
I might be forgetting a step, but that’s the gist of it. It took a little while to download and install everything.
After the install, I made a few tweaks to the Plex settings through its web interface. You just go to your Pi’s IP address followed by :32400/web in your browser. I set up my libraries, pointed it to where I’d be storing my media (which, for now, was just a USB drive I plugged in), and that was pretty much it!
There are some important settings I set up:
- General: Set the server name.
- Remote Access: make sure I can access it through the server IP.
- Library: Auto scan when there is file changes.
Adding Media and Testing
I copied some movies and TV shows onto the USB drive, and Plex picked them up automatically. I tested it out on my phone and my smart TV, and it worked like a charm! Streaming was smooth, and I could finally watch all my stuff without having to mess with files and folders.
So, yeah, that’s how I set up my Raspberry Pi as a home media server. It wasn’t completely painless, but it was definitely doable, even for someone who’s not a Linux expert. The best part is, now I have a dedicated little box for all my media, and I can access it from anywhere in my house. Pretty cool, huh?
