# Prerequisites

Before beginning the Media Manager setup, ensure that your system — whether it is a **fully configured and networked Raspberry Pi** or any other **Linux-based OS** — meets the minimum preparation requirements. Although this guide uses a Raspberry Pi as the reference environment, the setup works on almost any Linux host with minimal or no modification.

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## Recommended System Requirements

* Raspberry Pi 4 / 5 (4GB or 8GB recommended), or any Linux server/VM
* 64-bit OS
* Minimum 32GB storage
* External HDD/SSD for media storage
* Stable network connection (Ethernet recommended)

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## What Should Already Be Set Up

### 1. Raspberry Pi flashed and booted

Your system should already have:

* Raspberry Pi OS / Ubuntu Server installed
* First boot completed
* System updated:

  ```bash
  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
  ```

### 2. Network configuration

You should have:

* Working network access
* Static IP or DHCP reservation
* SSH enabled (recommended):

  ```bash
  sudo systemctl enable ssh --now
  ```

### 3. Storage connected and mounted

If using external HDD/SSD:

* Drives physically connected
* File systems recognized
* Drives mounted persistently via `/etc/fstab`, or prepared for mounting in the Setup Mount Points step

### 4. System time and timezone configured

```bash
sudo timedatectl set-timezone Asia/Kolkata
```

### 5. Basic Linux familiarity

You should be comfortable with:

* Navigating directories
* Editing files using nano or vim
* Running commands via SSH

---

## Optional but Recommended

### Enable UFW Firewall

```bash
sudo apt install ufw
sudo ufw enable
sudo ufw allow ssh
```

### Set a hostname

```bash
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname media-manager
```

### Hardware acceleration for Plex (optional)

Raspberry Pi users may enable VAAPI/V4L2 for improved transcoding.

---

## Next Step

Proceed to **[Overview](steps/overview.md)** once the above setup is complete.