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What would the point be, exactly? The stuff that makes a Roku worthwhile are all the apps and the proprietary drivers and networking stack stuff. If you're goin
by filmgirlcw 4y ago
What would the point be, exactly? The stuff that makes a Roku worthwhile are all the apps and the proprietary drivers and networking stack stuff. If you're going to put an alternate distro on it, you might be better off getting a whitebox Android TV/Kodi/whatever box off of Aliexpress than trying to get around the limitations on the Roku hardware.
- javajosh 4y agoIt would be pretty cool to be able to program my Roku to do anything I want, rather than be limited to whatever they want. In theory I can connect another device to the TV and use it as a display, but even in that case the Roku software is active. A security researcher (amateur or professional) is going to want to get in there and see what's going on in addition to running through a proxy. There are also some scenarios (admittedly pretty contrived in our compute-rich world) where your TV computer is the only one available to you, and so it would be in your interest to expand its functions. Imagine a kid in a poor neighborhood - theoretically with just a keyboard and a USB stick he could be using that TV as an internet-connected computer to learn how to program. That's a lot more value than running Netflix, IMHO.
- filmgirlcw 4y agoRight -- and I get that -- but I guess my point is, what can even really be done by rooting a Roku, since all the stuff in user space is close source/proprietary and the drivers are unlikely to be useful with an alternate distro. A RPi would be a much better choice for a poor kid in a neighborhood who wanted to have a way to program.
- javajosh 4y agoHave you tried buying an RPi lately? They are impossible to find. And it may be that compute devices will get harder to find over time. That poor kid may not have another choice.