Help with n100

[TheDreadPirate]

Many moons ago, I ran Plex, and briefly Jellyfin, on a Intel mini PC (J4205) running Windows. Even when a file was direct playing, Windows Defender CPU usage spiked massively. Transcoding was not viable due to Windows Defender consuming 60-70% of total CPU time on the J4205's 4 cores.

And this applied to both Plex and Jellyfin.

I disabled Windows Defender and the problem went away. But I had already decided to switch to Linux and it made a world of difference. Not just with Windows Defender not consuming resources, but the OS, in general, consuming less resources. I could support a few more streams, more transcodes, with the same low power hardware.

I strongly recommend Linux over Windows for low power CPUs, like the N100.

Stick with Debian or Ubuntu. Or any of the distros based on them. Theres a lot of documentation out there, lots of support, lots of users to help you along.