documentaiton should include minimum cognitive requirements

[CouldBeThis]

Hello, I saw this project on alternative.to and was thinking of installing but it's difficult to know whether it is reasonable to embark on it given my existing skills. In terms of background knowledge, the documentation says

Easy Setup

On the other hand, this video STREAMA: Host your own mini-Netflix using Linux says:

you'll also need a solid knowledge of Linux server administration particularly around HTTP concepts like reverse proxies we're going to get into that and a bit of port management

which I guess is "easy" to some people, but is far from universally agreed-upon.

It would be helpful to have a little bit of information about what sort of experience/knowledge is required, how much fiddling around is likely to be required, etc. I can copy/paste to the command line but there's no way I'm going to solve a mysql problem.

From reading the documentation, I can't actually tell, once I theoretically got this installed, how it would work to connect to a TV... I see there is another repo for an app which mentions it "requires a running streama service with a public url." Does that mean I need to buy an set up a domain name? And also that this application opens a server to the whole world? If that's the case I presume there are potential security issues. It makes me wonder if it would be a really bad idea to run on one's main desktop.

Anyway I don't need answers provided for all these questions. the main point is that it's useful for people like me to have a way of assessing how reasonable a project will be before starting it. and if a mismanaged installation could introduce security issues, or be anything other than a waste of time, that should be made extremely clear.

thank you for your time

[coatmaker618]

@CouldBeThis That's an interesting idea! But unfortuantely it's tricky to implement "minimum cognitive requirements"

The problem is that it largely depends what you expect out of this. This software scales from a single user who has everything on their laptop to an enterprise scale system with people accessing their Streama instance from the public web.

You hit the nail on the head when you say this completely changes the criteria & cognitive requirements.

Streama is completely capable of being run on your desktop with no need for the internet to be aware of it.

If you install Streama on a Windows box, you don't need Linux knowledge! Reverse Proxies are generally only needed for hosting multiple public facing services (like if you wanted Streama & something else), so that's not applicable to your setup. Database setup is only important if you want to make it easier to move your metadata to a different Streama install (or keep the metadata when you wipe Streama). This github page has a wiki with instruction to install Streama on Windows here

As for getting your stream to a TV? That's an essential question! I'd recommend using Chromecast if you don't want to connect an HDMI cable to a laptop/phone/media center.

I have not seen any life from the the Android Phone App for Streama in a while, sadly. I'd love to see it up and running again as I think it's a critical piece of Streama's functionality!

All that said, go ahead and install it on your desktop with no concerns :) Enjoy!

[dularion]

@coamtaker618 thanks for the detailed answer :)

regarding app: seems like the play store has more restrictions these days when it comes to streaming services, they get flagged as copyright infringing. so i am not sure yet how to approach that problem.. any ideas are welcome tho.

[coatmaker618]

@dularion Thank you. I'm glad I could help :) Hope "CouldBeThis" appreciates it too, if they're not long gone....

That's interesting to hear it's a copyright issue in the Google Play Store! I have a few thoughts, depending how much more work you want for yourself :p

1) Avoid the issue & put the app in other stores (F-Droid comes to mind -- unsure if there are others). Obviously this is non-optimial, but I assume it's not a lot of work? 2) Is there some way you can rewrite the language around the app or something? There's no reasonable interpretation of this approach where you're responsible for the users (us) pirating media. Also, something like Plex is no different in that respect! They're clearly on the Play Store. 3) You could post a standalone message about the State of the Streama App--it's like a State of the Union, but more modest in scale ;) Sarcasm aside, maybe someone else on here would have a better idea than me? Plus it's good to know the app isn't abandoned, as I incorrectly assumed!

[CouldBeThis]

Hello! It looks like I missed a bunch of notifications so I am just catching up now. Thank you for taking the time to respond to me.

I actually have a chromecast but it doesn't get much use because it seems to not really like anything other than chrome to talk to it. VLC is meant to be able to connect, but one or both of them totally throws a temper tantrum. Constant coaxing is required and not even always enough. I am inclined to blame the chromecast, but I don't really know how to tell for sure.

I will save this information and give it a shot when I am next working on this project.

[coatmaker618]

Sounds like a plan @CouldBeThis! And good luck with the build whenever you get around to it :)