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<p>Hi Tom!</p>
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<pre wrap="">I'm thinking it's finally time to bite the bullet and think about
building a new frontend, </pre>
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I'll pretty much agree with Jerry's response as 'just about
anything works' though have staid with Intel and nVidia as they
seem to be better supported -- both by Linux and them
supporting/cooperating with Linux. I've built and in some cases
rebuilt several Frontends over the years. Probably sounds like a
dumb comment but the CPU speed does make a difference, not in
video playback but in 'reaction time': the time it takes to load a
new show (not to mention boot!). Probably don't need anything
more than a good dual core. For memory it seems 2 GB is right for
a dedicated Frontend. Now if you are planning to use the Frontend
as an auxiliary computer for mail, etc., I'd go with a more robust
system (and I have here).</p>
<p>FWIW as a 'spare' Frontend you could go with a Raspberry Pi 3
B+. Here I use an RPi 3B as a secondary Frontend (I have two
Backends and some FEs look at one and others the second.
Pixellation issues; sometimes one BE records properly and
sometimes the other does.) Anyway the little ol' RPi does great
as a Frontend. There is a bit of a lag while loading but AFACT
1080 stereo playback is flawless. In some ways the RPi works
better than the desktop FE it sits next to. Here I did find the
WiFi connection was borderline, but as you stated you were using a
wired connection that's not an issue. If you decide to try this
option I would suggest getting the newer RPI 3B+ which is a little
bit faster plus offers 5GHz wireless.</p>
<p>Barry<br>
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