I’ve populated a spare NUC <\/a>that I had around (was a bit flaky under heavy load and thus it got shelved for software development purposes) with memory and storage as a media PC for our basement television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m looking at using Ubuntu Linux<\/a> or a derivative as the operating system as I’m hoping to get a more integrated look and feel than I have with the living-room machine that runs windows and is used with a mouse and keyboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m also adding in an HDMI switch as this is a less expensive television and only has two direct HDMI inputs. We currently have the VR system<\/a> and a blue-ray player occupying these inputs. I’m borrowing the blue ray player input for the NUC <\/a>for the moment but would like to have the NUC as the primary input switched against the VR system and the blue-ray on the secondary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A friend at work dug up some options on the linux front that seem to center around variations of the kodi package running on an Ubuntu variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the weekend I loaded Ubuntu on the machine and after a few missteps got a new enough version of Chrome\u00a0<\/a>loaded to allow Netflix to run properly. Older versions complain that Silverlight isn’t available and HTLM5 support isn’t there (or at least not sufficient).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve loaded kodi and the base package seems pretty nice. It even supports the IR remote that I used to have working with windows media center before that went away with windows 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did not have much success in getting the Netflix plug in loaded. In order to really do the job I want, kodi must at least stream Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. I’ll likely keep after this as time permits and stick with Chrome based video for the time being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n