You can easily share your videos, music and pictures stored in your linux box with your Smart TV, all you have to do is configure a DLNA server in linux.

One of the easiest to install and configure is ReadyMedia (formerly MiniDLNA): http://minidlna.sourceforge.net/

Here are the steps needed to configure on Ubuntu:

  1. Install the package: 
    apt-get install minidlna
  2. Specify the folders where the multimedia contents is stored.

    To do this, add one or more lines like this in /etc/minidlna.conf:

    media_dir=/path/to/folder

    where ‘/path/to/folder’ is the directory name where the files are located; you can specify as many ‘media_dir’ as you want.

    IMPORTANT!: Verify that the user ‘minidlna’ has read and execute permission in the folders specified.

  3. Increase the Inotify Watches Limit:

    By default Ubuntu has this value set to 8192, you need to increase this value to more than 65535

    To increase the limit, execute (as root):

    # echo 65538 > /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

    To make the change permanent, add the following to /etc/sysctl.conf:

    fs.inotify.max_user_watches=65538

    Restart the DLNA server after doing the modification specified above:

    # /etc/init.d/minidlna restart
  4. Now everything’s ready, you can play your multimedia files stored in your Ubuntu server in your Smart TV!