(2019-09-01, 19:11)richyboypalm Wrote: [ -> ]The win 10 was a must when I was ripping all my music and dvd's/bluray's
Years ago, where I started to move from Windows to Linux in general (not only for Kodi) I spend a lot of time to find Linux-alternatives for what I was used to do on Windows. And I found a replacement for everything. I found that ripping AudioCDs with Kodi itself isn't as bad as I first thought (there are better alternatives, tbh...but one can work with that). I also found that ripping DVDs and BRs also can easily be done with MakeMKV (it's free while you are using the Beta version). So Win10 is not a must. You just have to put a little more effort in searching for replacements and if you found them and getting used to other software, you will see that Linux isn't that complicated at all. But it takes some time
As a recommendation for Kodi on Linux, I would always recommend to use Ubuntu (in case you need a full blown OS). Reasons for that is simply that Kodi has it's own PPA (personal package archive) providing different versions of kodi (depending on which ppa you installed). For further information read this, please:
https://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Install_Ko...tributions
If you need to decide for the Ubuntu version, I would rtecommend to stick to LTS versions which currently is 18.04. There are also different Ubuntu flavours (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, XUbuntu and such). In general it's all the same. The normal "Ubuntu" provides GNome as its dekstop environment, Kubuntu provides KDE and XUbuntu provides XFCE. I'm using XUbuntu, but you can use any of them. Take a look at YouTube and see which desktop environment you will like best
If you don't need a full blown OS and only want to use Kodi on that machine, then I would recommend to use LibreELEC in its current stable version 9.0.2. LibreELEC is a read-only OS which doesn't provide anything else than Kodi. Means, you can't install any kind of additional software beside Kodi add-ons. One has to mention that LibreELEC is able to use "Docker" but that would be a different story which requires some learning process. But if Kodi is the only use for that machine and you don't need any other software beside Kodi on it, then LibreELEC would be the way to go.
The Update process:
Full blown Ubuntu OSs are upgrading every package you have installed via some PPA or from the Ubuntu repositories by using
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y (the first command updates the PPAs and repositories and checks for new versions, the 2nd command does the update, the "-y" will answer an upcoming question with "yes" the "&&" means that the first command has to be finished without errors and if that is done, run the other command). So it's a single line and then you have to wait until everything is done.
That's different for LibreELEC. Please read that how to update your LibreELEC machine:
https://wiki.libreelec.tv/how_to/update_libreelec
In general you always have to wait for a new LibreELEC version if you want to use an actual Kodi version. LibreELEC has some delay to test stuff before releasing. That means, if Kodi is released in a newer version (let's say 18.4) and as LibreELEC 9.0.2 currently provides Kodi 18.3, you can't update Kodi without updating the complete OS. So you have to wait for LibreELEC until they release a version where Kodi 18.4 is included (which will be LibreELEC 9.0.3). That sounds more complicated as it is
. It's just for mentioning that you can't update the Kodi package which is pre-installed solely.
(2019-09-01, 20:08)richyboypalm Wrote: [ -> ]Should I use the onboard AMD graphics, its a R7, it dose not support h.265 decoding so this will be pushed to the processor, but Kodi can do that right?
I had an Intel Haswell machine over some years which couldn't hardware-decode h.265 as well. So it was done via CPU. Never got any issues with it. But I don't have any experience with AMD GPUs, tbh.