One of the things people like to do with PCs is to use them as media centres for playback and recording of videos, TV broadcasts and music etc. I haven't really got into this in a big way other than for playback of my CD and DVD collection. Nevertheless I have used a computer for playback of these things for quite a few years. In Windows, DVD playback capability was not included after Windows 7, requiring either an app purchased from MS, or some third party software. VLC Media Player has proven to be reasonably good, although not perfect, as the playback sometimes stutters (although it is possible the computer's hardware may be at fault).
VLC is one of the free cross platform packages available but others do exist. Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a dedicated media player package that is produced for various platforms, including Linux (precompiled specifically for Ubuntu). I have installed it onto the secondary Xubuntu computer and am just getting used to it, it looks very good and it is designed for media-centre type scenarios, where the user will be some distance away from the screen and perhaps (as in my case) using a media-centre type of keyboard (I use the Logitech K400 Plus which incorporates a trackpad) with less precise pointer movements and therefore needing larger visual targets etc.
So as I am rearranging things here at home with where the computers are situated and will have the 2nd Xubuntu computer in the bedroom alongside the main pc as a 2nd PC and media centre then Kodi will get a lot of use and with all the plugins for various features it looks very good for that purpose.
Remote access is another interesting subject for Linux. In my lounge I have a computer I use for study as it is sometimes a quieter working space than the bedroom and it ideally remotes to the computer I actually use most of the time. Now in fact that computer is a VirtualBox VM running on the mainPC and it can be remoted onto in just the same way as if it were a regular Windows computer. VirtualBox also has its own remote display (VRDP) system which is backward compatible to RDP meaning it is a way of getting RDP on virtual machines that aren't running Windows. I haven't looked into this to see if it is a better option than using the regular RDP for a virtual macine running Windows.
So that is how I actually work with remote access at the moment as I haven't got to the stage of needing to remote access the main part of the computer running Xubuntu just now. If I do get to that point at some time in the future then it will probably be VNC I will use as this is well supported in Linux.
So that is how I actually work with remote access at the moment as I haven't got to the stage of needing to remote access the main part of the computer running Xubuntu just now. If I do get to that point at some time in the future then it will probably be VNC I will use as this is well supported in Linux.
