How to watch media from Emby on Chrome OS
The Emby Theater app is a media client created to provide an easy-to-use interface to access the Emby Media Server. In this guide, we’ll show you how you can get the Emby Theater app working on your Chromebook.
How to enable Linux on your Chromebook
You’ll need to turn on Linux support in your Chromebook before you can install the Emby Theater application. This is because it’s a Linux app and not a Chrome OS app. Thankfully, enabling Linux on a Chromebook is easy.
First, click on the clock icon in the Chrome OS dash. Then, select the gear icon, to load up the Settings area. Lastly, click on the arrow next to “Advanced” to reveal the advanced options available.
Select “Developers.” Then, in the “Developers” area, find “Linux developer environment” and click on the “Turn on” button. When you choose the “Turn on” button, Chrome OS will download a Debian Linux container, and a terminal application for you to use to interact with it.
In the terminal app, you need to select “Penguin” to access the Linux command line interface. Once in the command line, use the apt update command to update the container’s software sources.
sudo apt update
After you’ve run the apt update command, you must execute the apt upgrade command. This command installs pending upgrades for the Linux container. The will take a few minutes to complete.
sudo apt upgrade
When the upgrade command finishes, you’ll be ready to use the Linux developer environment on your Chromebook to install Emby Theater.
How to install Emby Theater on Chrome OS – DEB
The easiest way to get the Emby Theater application up and running on your Chromebook is by downloading and installing the latest .Deb package from the official website and installing it.
To start the download, you’ll need to launch the Chrome OS terminal app. You can launch the Chrome OS terminal app by searching for it in the Chrome OS app menu. Once the terminal app is open, and ready to use, execute the wget command to download the latest Emby Theater .Deb.
wget https://github.com/MediaBrowser/emby-theater-electron/releases/download/3.0.19/emby-theater-deb_3.0.19_amd64.deb
Once you’ve downloaded the .Deb package to your Chromebook, you can install it on your system using the apt install command. This command is preferable to the dpkg command, as it automatically takes care of all required packages. To install Emby Theater, run the following command.
sudo apt install ./emby-theater-deb_3.0.19_amd64.deb
When the command is complete, you’ll be able to launch the Emby Theater app through the “Linux apps” folder in the Chrome OS app menu.
How to install Emby Theater on Chrome OS – Flatpak
Another way to install the Emby Theater application on a Chromebook is via Flatpak. However, before you can install the software, you’ll need to enable the Flatpak runtime and the Flathub app store.
Open up the Chrome OS terminal app. Once it is open, find the “Penguin” option, and select it with the mouse. When you have access to the terminal command-line interface, you can use the apt command to install the “flapak” package on your Chromebook.
sudo apt install flatpak
With the Flatpak runtime set up on your system, it is time to enable the Flathub app store. You can enable the Flathub app store by entering the following flatpak remote-add command below.
flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
After setting up the Flathub app store on your Chromebook, it is time to install the Emby Theater application. Using the flatpak install command below, install the software on your system.
flatpak install flathub media.emby.EmbyTheater
How to use Emby Theater on Chrome OS
To use Emby Theater on your Chromebook, start by launching the app on your system. You’ll be able to launch it from the “Linux apps” folder in the Chrome OS app menu. Once it is open, you’ll see a message. This message states “Welcome to Emby.” Click the “Next” button to move to the next page.
On the next page, you’ll be prompted to sign in with Emby Connect. Emby will give you a pin. From here, open up your mobile Emby app and log in. Alternatively, you can log in manually, by selecting “Connect to server manually.”
When you’ve connected, you’ll see your Emby media files available in Theater to watch on your Chromebook. Select a movie, TV show, photo album, or music, and enjoy!
