What HTPC OS/Front End do I Want?

I'm updating/rebuilding the old HTPC Box.

It was a Foxconn OE ITX board from a HP or Gateway or something I got cheap on eBay, a Core 2 Duo (e6400 I think), 4 Gb of DDR2, and a Nvidia Geforce GT 430.

I'm replacing it with one of the newer J1900 embedded boards from Biostar, 8 Gb of DDR3, and keeping the GT 430 in the mix. The onboard Bay Trail graphics would likely handle most of the work I'd ask of the board, but I have the GT 430, and it benchmarks almost 300% faster than the Bay Trail HD, so why not? Plus I'm losing a little processing horse power going from the e6400 to the J1900. I'm gaining a lot though, in the J1900 having 2 more cores, much lower TDP, and being passively cooled, i.e. silent.

Hardware is selected, already ordered or in posession. The question is what OS?

I've been just running straight Ubuntu.

I was leaning toward Ubuntu or similar distro with XBMC/Kodi vs. straight Kodi, it's nice to be able to do "other" computer stuff too occasionally but not necessary.

If I skip the "other" stuff, then OpenElec looks more appealing than Kodibuntu or similar, simple clean, Nvidia specific distros readily available. Kodi seems to be the most popular option though.

I can get a legit Win 7 Pro 64 disc for about $60, I've considered that too, with XBMC/Kodi.

Thoughts, suggestions, experiences, anecdotes?

Mine runs plain ol' Mint with MATE, I have Kodi on there but I hardly use it - mostly playing video files from a network share, some in the browser.

Edit: My other one runs Xubuntu, but that's a server first and a HTPC second.

I have been using FreeNAS on a refurbished, Supermicro, 1U, single Quad Core Xenon, server, as my media/file server. Noise, heat, and power consumption have me wanting to switch over to another one of these J1900 embedded boards. I don't know if FreeNAS will maintain my RAID if I switch out hardware though? That's on the list of tinkering after I get the new HTPC up and running.

If you switch hardware and keep the same FreeNAS installation, your array should work if it's software RAID. In any case, you should back up the array if you can and at least document the RAID configuration - if it's a raidZ array you should export the zpool configuration.

If it's Intel Matrix RAID the new system needs to have this kind of RAID controller, and it will pick up your setup automatically - the RAID setup information is stored on each of the hard drives. If it's some other kind of hardware RAID, you should assume you'll have to back up and recreate the array.

I am rinning wondows 7 64 bit with WMC as my PVR and KODI. I realize why I hated windows so much and went Apple years ago. Avoid windows.

DrBoost wrote: I realize why I hated windows so much and went Apple years ago.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire...

Yeah, it's ZFS (RAID-Z2), I kind of assumed it would maintain the array on a new motherboard. I've got 4x 1 Tb WD RE drives, gives just a tad less than 2 Tb of usable space, and I've filled about 1/3 of it. I may have to commandeer SWMBO's My Book, for back up during the change over.

I'm not too snobby, DVD rips at 720p take up less space, and look good enough to me.

I've been using OpenElec and Kodi on my Raspberry Pi HTPC's. One in the living room has a 3TB external drive connected to it with a a bunch of files to play and with some of the Streaming addons provided by videoaddons.ag, I've not run out of things to watch and even better is that it has been pretty stable and easy to use.

So for you? I'd use Ubuntu and Kodi as a front end so you can still use it as a PC if you'd like. Heck connect a second screen and run Kodi on the TV and do your PC stuff on the second screen.

My current build runs Ubuntu with Unity. I'm running Plex to serve everything up, as it is also accessed in other places around the house. I primarily went with Ubuntu/Unity because it's pretty. There is a lot of overhead for that pretty stuff, but it IS the HTPC after all! Doing it over again, I'd probably go with Mint/Mate and stick with Plex. I also use Sickbeard and SabNZB, which play nice with the whole setup.

In reply to Bruce:

What do you to control it?

I have several boxes running Mint with Kodi on it that work great. I also have one box with Openelec on it that works good too. I always thought that having the fill distro with Kodi would be more useful than the Openelec but in reality I find I don't use any other functions on the Mint boxes. The only exception is the box that has the TV tuner in it. That one I do use the Mint regularly.

My quick refresh of the HTPC became dang near a whole new build. New mother board, and ram, turned into, new mother board, ram, power supply, hard drive, and case.

I like the Biostar board with the embedded J1900 so far, but I guess I just assumed it was an ITX board, but it's really a micro-ATX, I don't know how I overlooked that. Obviously it wouldn't fit in my Cooler Master ITX case. I bought a Silverstone HTPC case to replace it, it works better in the entertainment center than the Cooler Master did, so that kind of worked out.

After no POST on initial power on, I discovered that my ancient, cheapest of the cheap, Diablotek PSU had no power to the CPU, thankfully I had a spare PSU in one of the boxes of parts. Spare is a micro ATX PSU though, so it's tiny and only lines up with 2 of the mounting holes on the case. I know they make adapters, but I think it'll be fine.

Then when I went to do a fresh install of Ubuntu, I ran into bad sector, after bad sector, after bad sector, on the old 640 Gb WD Green hard drive. I've got 7 or 8 spare hard drives, but they're all IDE or 2.5" drives, I could have adapted one, but decided to start fresh, and got a cheap 320 GB SATA II WD Caviar SE instead.

Up and running now, and I'm learning Kodi. I originally installed XBMC from Ubuntu's Software Center, it was the older Frodo version, and the XBMC Repository was empty, never would refresh or load apps. I attempted some apps from other repositories but got constant errors.

I removed XBMC, installed Kodi (Isengard) from the terminal, and am having a much better experience. A lot of video apps/streams are dead, and a few errors, but I've actually got some working content now.

I've still got some learning to do, there are A LOT of repositories to choose from, and most of them don't provide a very good description. Thankfully one of the main reasons I decided to revive the HTPC, Sportsdevil, is kind of working.

In reply to RossD:

Old Microsoft Media Center USB infrared adapter and remote. HP branded, they are about $5-15 on Fleabay. I've found them at the local Goodwill as well.

It plugs into one of the USB ports on the RPi and has a long cord and double-sided tape so I can mount the RPi behind the TV/Monitor and just have the tiny infrared receiver visible.

Kodi recognizes the adapter without issue and allows you to control the device from your couch. I did add a wireless keyboard/mouse because trying to type with the remote is annoying.

There's also FLIRC: https://flirc.tv/more/flirc-usb

And HDMI-CEC if your TV supports it: http://www.averagemanvsraspberrypi.com/2015/05/7-remote-control-options-for-your.html

I've been using this since the 2nd or 3rd iteration of my HTPC.
Logitech K400

Amazon says I purchased it Nov. of 2011, so I've had it a while, I can't think of a good reason to replace it. Sure it's bulkier than a remote, but it's got a keyboard, and trackpad, that a remote doesn't, and the keyboard is just big enough to actually type on.