Installing Plex Media Server to Stream your Media from almost any Device

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Installing Plex Media Server on your Ubuntu Shell™ allows you to stream your favorite media from anywhere at any time as long as your Shell™ is running. In this short tutorial, we'll show you how to install the server on your Shell and add libraries to consume your media on the go. 

Installing Plex

The first thing that we'll want to do is go to https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/ and download the installer for Linux distros. Because Ubuntu is a 64-bit operating system, we'll make sure to download the installer for 64-bit distros.  At the time of writing, the installer is named plexmediaserver_1.21.2.3943-a91458577_amd64.deb, however, you may have a different version number when installing depending on time. 

Assuming that your installer is in your Downloads folder, open up a fresh Terminal session and input 

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.19.4.2935-79e214ead_amd64.deb

Note that your deb file may have a different version number, so adjust accordingly. If everything goes as planned, you should see the installation process printed to the terminal like so:

Next, we'll want to enable the Plex Media Server repository by inputting the commands:

$ echo deb https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.list

$ curl https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key | sudo apt-key add -

We will then follow this with 

sudo apt-get update

This will allow us to update Plex whenever we'd like by running the above command. 

Almost done! All we have to do now is link a folder where we keep our media to Plex, and we'll be good to go. 

Next, input the following into the browser of your choice:

http://127.0.0.1:32400/web

It should take you to a screen where, assuming you've made a Plex account, will allow you to link your account to your plex folder as well as link a folder containing your media to Plex, where it will now be considered a "library."

If you finish the installation process and would like to add more libraries to your Plex Media Server, you can do so by clicking More in the bottom left of your Plex console, locating the tab with your server name, and hovering over your server name and clicking "Add Library":

You'll then be able to link a folder on your Shell™as a Plex media library. 

With this, you'll now be able to stream your media anywhere, at any time assuming you have access to Plex and your Shell™is running.