People use separate computers for wide range of reasons. My desktop isn't always running Linux for example, or even from the same partition always, and to run something 24/7 I need to host it not on my for-work desktop. I also run some less trusted software on separate server and network than say Home Assistant and Frigate.
Sure, I suppose. And I do have a separate computer for HA, because I consider it part of the house.in a way that is simply deserving of (cheap!) dedicated hardware.
But most of my multi-os stuff happens with VMs these days.
After I spent a few years successfully running Windows as my primary desktop OS, as a virtual machine (with its own dedicated CPU cores and accessories like GPU), the lines between separate computers and different operating systems permanently became very blurry to me.
As "lightweight" as it is, you don't even need Plex or a "media server" software. My "media server" has been "files on an NFS share" which has worked for me for the last 15-20 years.
SMB share is the minimum viable. Plex on an android TV device is a lot better. Access to all the media with a simple remote has been a great experience.
Oh, I also use SMB for that. A local file share is more than enough for anyone who lives alone, in a cave, and who never has never physically interacted with another person -- and who never wants to.
Plex, meanwhile? It is much more approachable by the lays.
My elderly mother can watch my media with a cheap little Roku box while she sits on the sofa at her house many miles away with a remote control in her hand, using Plex.
- Each member of my family gets their watch progress individually tracked down to how many minutes they made it into each video, across devices.
- The server's GPU automatically transcodes video into the best format for the device, display resolution, and available bandwidth. Very helpful for streaming stuff off the home server while away from home to optimize battery life and bandwidth.
- Automatically pulling subtitles from opensubtitles. Very handy if you have a multingual family who enjoys foreign media shows together. The paid streaming services are mostly abysmal at subtitling.
- A soft reason: My family members are seriously impressed by how nice the web UI is compared to Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, etc. It's literally opened their eyes to how software doesn't have to be bad - capitalism makes software bad over time.
Plex is a pretty light-weight system as long as transcoding is avoided or it has hardware transcoding available to use.
And wrangling Usenet is a fairly simple affair on vaguely modern PC hardware, too.
So all of that stuff runs in the background on the same desktop Linux box that I also use for everything else.
Am I doing it wrong?