9 ms·

Plasma Bigscreen – 10-foot interface for KDE plasma

673 points by PaulHoule 8mo ago

pixelmelt 8mo ago
Wow this is big, what's the best device/remote stack to use it with?
- drnick1 8mo ago
  For streaming, any mini-PC (e.g. N100 or a used thin client) paired with an airmouse remote (I use a Pepperjobs remote). If you want to use Steam on that machine and play modern games however, then you basically need a gaming PC and an Xbox controller.
DiJu519 8mo ago
What kind of "Remote" would one use to mimic say an Android TV box or normal cable company Set-Top experience?
- accurrent 8mo ago
  I use kde connect with my android for my htpc. Works nicely enough on stoxk kde.
- lynndotpy 8mo ago
  This is listed on the linked page. KDE makes the excellent KDE Connect. You can also use a TV remote, game controller, or keyboard and mouse.
- haunter 8mo ago
  Unified Remote with my phone https://www.unifiedremote.com/ https://www.unifiedremote.com/
- JoshTriplett 8mo ago
  There are many bluetooth remotes you can use for this. You may want one that has a built-in keyboard, or just one with arrows and a handful of buttons.
- drnick1 8mo ago
  My suggestion would be an airmouse remote, possibly with an built-in keyboard. This is because sooner or later you will want to use a web browser to stream content, and a mouse is incredibly convenient for that.
- PufPufPuf 8mo ago
  I have this one, acts like a mouse (gyroscope) and keyboard (arrows, back, home, vol+- on the front side, almost-full qwerty on the back). https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860823468.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860823468.html
- herzzolf 8mo ago
  If your HTPC supports HDMI-CEC, it will just pass-through the inputs from the TV remote, no additional ones required.
- suprjami 8mo ago
  Look up "USB RF remote" on eBay. There are two common ones you'll see everywhere. I have one for my Kodi system.
- r14c 8mo ago
  I use KDE connect, it has a really nice remote input feature.
shablulman 8mo ago
[flagged]
olivierestsage 8mo ago
Big things from KDE lately. If you haven't tried it since the pre-Plasma days, I really recommend giving it a go. Fabulous as a general DE.
- simonask 8mo ago
  Just did recently. I remembered KDE as flexible but cluttered. It’s still flexible, but they really cleaned up nice!
  - brendyn 8mo ago
    Try going in to edit mode you'll freak out if you not prepared
    - Pxtl 8mo ago
      Good. The edit mode is exactly the place I want to be overwhelmed with options.
- cromka 8mo ago
  I did, but I don't share the sentiment. Moved this year from macOS and KDE is over-engineered with little thought put into the UX. For example, try to take a screenshot. I was quite literally shaking my head for good couple minutes looking at this abomination. It's so extremely confusing, all over the place, bogged down with tons of switches, modes, it's like you need to spend 30 minutes to understand how this thing works and all the Whys. Took me couple days to realize it was an actual Photo app in its screenshot mode. If only they spent some of their increasing budget on some proper UX usability testing and not rely on their people's gut feelings and a "that'll do" mentality... Meanwhile, Gnome just works exactly like you'd expect it to. I said it before already, but Gnome is for people moving from macOS and KDE is for ex-Windows veterans. And, for the record, I don't want to praise Gnome's overly-minimalistic approach, either, which too gets annoying when you have to find an extension for every stupid extra setting beyond the defaults. But, all in all, I much prefer it over KDE and wouldn't switch back. Not to mention the aesthetics, because there's no comparison if one shares the Apple/Braun ideals on design. A plot twist here is that I am also a KDE app developer...
9dc 8mo ago
but it will be hard to play DRM protected media, eg Netflix on a device like this, right?
- trueismywork 8mo ago
  720p using widevine. I play it. It works. Even if I disable DRM in my main browser. And only isolate it to my Netflix account.
  - haunter 8mo ago
    You can get 1080p on Linux with Opera https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081
    - SahAssar 8mo ago
      Weird, why just on opera? It uses the same engine (chromium) as many other browsers.
      - h4ch1 8mo ago
        I'm guessing because of a higher widevine certification level or a server-side policy? You can also spoof Opera's user agent and get 1080p on FF so guessing it's a server-side thing; since Linux has L3 widevine certification because no kernel level TEE
      - godelski 8mo ago
        I have no issues on Firefox FWIW. I haven't needed to spoof the user agent, though this is something I needed to back in the day when they literally blocked FF's user agent.
  - 3eb7988a1663 8mo ago
    Is that through a dedicated Netflix profile or is there a way to enable DRM per site?
- himata4113 8mo ago
cromka 8mo ago
If this can run AndroidTV apps (don't see why it couldn't), then it can be a hit.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- drnick1 8mo ago
  Bigscreen is just basically a DE. To run Android apps on Linux you can use Waydroid. But yes, you can absolutely combine Bigscreen, Waydroid and a few other apps such as VacuumTube and Steam in fullscreen mode to create the ultimate free/libre streaming/gaming console.
  - mongol 8mo ago
    VacuumTube is fantastic
kingo55 8mo ago
Are there existing alternatives to this? I use KDE, but I have also heard Steam OS has something similar.
- himata4113 8mo ago
  steamos is just kde.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8mo ago
    SteamOS uses KDE for their "desktop" session, but does their own thing for the normal gaming mode.
sho_hn 8mo ago
Just to manage expectations: Big Screen is a fairly old project at this point, that has always had a relatively small number of people showing it some love (though I understand recently there's been an uptick again). This is not a new product announcement from us, nor a key focus of the community. That is not the disparage the work being done there in any way, but this most likely isn't quite Kodi just yet.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- nsxwolf 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - accurrent 8mo ago
    Im an oss maintainer and recently the slop Ive had to deal with is excruciating. Theres nothing wrong with using AI for code, but generating 10prs that are all broken cause you have no idea what youre doing and hoping to get into GSoC is nonsense.
- drnick1 8mo ago
  > but this most likely isn't quite Kodi just yet. Kodi is incredibly limited though, and does not come close to the flexibility of Plasma Bigscreen. The latter is just a UI optimized for using a PC from a couch, which means that you can use any regular desktop app, including Kodi, web browsers for streaming content, and Steam for playing games. Kodi on the other hand does not even allow you to play YT videos without using some buggy add-on that requires registering an API key with Google (no thanks).
  - wao0uuno 8mo ago
    Also Kodis interface is terrible. I couldn't make a more convoluted and hard to navigate interface for TVs even if I tried.
    - 8mo ago
godelski 8mo ago
This is really cool and I'd love to see TVs ship with it. There's a lack of innovation these days and I think the only way to bring it back is to recognize that computers are environments and people need to be able to build on them. With TVs becoming more powerful this could be a big win. Make it easy so my aging tech illiterate parents can use it (looks like it does the job, at least as well as any other) but also hackable for people like us, to fix bugs and drive innovation. My TV is currently a monitor for my computer, so something like this even works for me in the same way steam big picture does. For work, I ssh in. One thing that helps is I use ydotool and my phone and laptop can easily be a keyboard
socalgal2 8mo ago
This sounds awesome but reading the comments it sounds not quite there yet? Right now I use an AppleTV with Kodi installed via developer account. Unfortunately, Kodi on AppleTV is not well supported so it crashes a ton. I'm not much of an Apple dev. After much gnashing of teeth I managed to get a from source build running so I could maybe look into why it crashes and contribute but I've never debugged an AppleTV app and even trying to switch to using the simulator which I suspect is better for debugging, I couldn't figure it out. But, quite often I just wish to get some other small box for Kodi. Except I don't want 2 boxes, one for Kodi and one for other proprietary apps (Crunchyroll, Twitch, Netflix, ...) Any suggestions?
- brcmthrowaway 8mo ago
  Claude ?
  - socalgal2 8mo ago
    Thanks for the push. It worked.
- J_tt 8mo ago
  I’ve just moved from Kodi on a Linux box to Jellyfin and Infuse on an Apple TV, so far fantastic experience
  - s0rce 8mo ago
    I also moved from Kodi to Jellyfin. I have an ubuntu machine as the server and an Nvidia shield with Android connected to the TV as a client. Works great and was much simpler to keep working right than Kodi. Although Kodi didn't need any server side software except SMB shares.
  - ritlo 8mo ago
    Same set-up here. Had tried many times over something like 15 years to get Kodi/XBMC working well. Nobody else could/would ever use it (the UI is so bad) and I bet I spent about 50% as much time screwing around to set it up and maintain it as I ever spent watching stuff on it. Jellyfin, at first with the official client on Roku then on Infuse on AppleTV when x265 hardware decoding started becoming a requirement (my server is too weak to transcode) has been everything I wanted Kodi to be. Web interface is great, I share it with a couple friends over Tailscale. Wife and kids and visitors use Infuse, no problem, no complaints, no help needed. My use-to-fiddling ratio is probably literally 100x better than with Kodi. I have spent overall less total time messing with it than with Kodi, even including figuring out solutions for things like YouTube videos.
amelius 8mo ago
Now we only need a TV that doesn't send screenshots back to the vendor.
- drnick1 8mo ago
  This is easy, don't connect your TV to the Internet and use it as a monitor for a mini PC running Plasma Bigscreen.
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 8mo ago
    > don't connect your TV to the Internet 5G fixes this
    - amelius 8mo ago
      Yeah, in the future all TVs will be like high end cars today.
    - drnick1 8mo ago
      Don't buy such a TV, or mod it by removing the cellular modem. Same problem with cars, but generally quite easily solved.
      - account42 8mo ago
        For cars that's going to be illegal (or at least make it illegal to use the vehicle on public roads) at some point if it isn't already in your jurisdiction.
  - amelius 8mo ago
    If enough people do this, new TVs will stop working without an internet connection.
    - drnick1 8mo ago
      If enough people do this, and refuse to buy TVs that do not work without an Internet connection, manufacturers will get the message and not make such TVs.
functionmouse 8mo ago
I've got Windows 7 at 125% running on a 70some inch TV off a tiny Optiplex Micro with an i3 or something, and a fork of modern Firefox for w7, hardware accel and all. I use my phone as a bluetooth touchpad/keyboard with an app that was maybe 5 bucks. Best 10-foot interface I've ever used. Everything works exactly as expected, no fuss, no gotchas, no friction, no workflow-breaking updates. And I never lose the remote! This (plasma-bigscreen) is going to fail, as 10-foot interfaces historically do. It is a waste of good developer time and focus. Free Desktop people keep obsessing over ill-advised moonshots as a form of escapism; no one wants to address the fundamentally broken core desktop model. Papercut bugs are boring and solving them is thankless. Working on a shiny new TV mode interface looks better on a resume. Meanwhile the rest of the world is pulling their hair out over Windows 11 and macOS Tahoe because there are still no feasible alternatives for normal human beings.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- gzread 8mo ago
  If 10foot is ill-advised then why do you use one?
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
cromka 8mo ago
So... Steam TV Box confirmed?
whateverboat 8mo ago
KDE is the best DE out there.
himata4113 8mo ago
"Built on Modern Linux Technologies" > D-bus alright! on a more serious note, should remove that incase that was put there by AI.
- phanimahesh 8mo ago
  Wait dbus isn't considered modern? What's the alternative these days?
  - himata4113 8mo ago
    There's not, but it's also a very very old technology - definitely not 'modern' linux. It has a lot of problems especially with protocol standartization and permissions. You can tell something and you might get something back or you might listen for something and get garbage instead. The maker of hyprland has shipped an alternative though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46278857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46278857
- aidenn0 8mo ago
  If I had to guess, I would guess that this statement was put there before ChatGPT existed. [edit] Unless this text was buried deeper than the front page and then promoted, I was wrong. That language was not there last November according to archive.org
em3rgent0rdr 8mo ago
Too bad can't access $CorpStreamingVideoService full-resolution on linux :(
- drnick1 8mo ago
  Get your videos from other sources.
jcelerier 8mo ago
I'm really wondering about what is that ASIO4ALL uninstaller doing in there
while_true_ 8mo ago
"Plasma" is an awkward name for a television app. First image that comes to mind is the old plasma 50-inch I used to have. Damn thing weighed nearly 100 pounds and was really power-hungry.
- hnlmorg 8mo ago
  “Plasma” isn’t the name of the television app. It’s “Big Screen”. “Plasma” just refers to the desktop environment: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/ https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/ So this is a “Big Screen” UI for KDE Plasma.
  - account42 8mo ago
    Plasma was also a stupid name for the DE, especially when it already had a better name that everyone knows.
- 64738 8mo ago
  Yes! I still use my Panasonic 50" plasma as my daily driver. I still love it, it's an amazing TV :D
- cheeze 8mo ago
  I loved my Plasma TV. Bought it as an intern dirt cheap off of some dude at my company who posted it in a email group. He upgraded to the latest and greatest and just wanted it hauled out. Picture quality (for the time) was incredible! It also doubled as the worlds best space heater. My god it was power hungry.
ehnto 8mo ago
Super cool, I have been extremely pleased with my switch to KDE. I have used MacOS as a daily, I have used Windows 95-Win10, I have used various linux distros all for long periods of time at work and home. KDE Plasma has really hit the sweetspot for me, it's super usable daily and still has easy customisability. Thanks to all the effort poured into Proton I have even replaced my gaming PC with Arch/KDE plasma with really very little stress. I am VR gaming, on linux, on AAA titles, with no messing around, if this isn't the year of linux desktop then it will never be.
akshatjiwan 8mo ago
KDE is amazing. For an open-source project the desktop environment looks really slick. Not that any other desktop environments are particularly ugly but KDE can compete with the best commercially developed desktops. For a moment though I thought that this story was about the launch of a new plasma TV 'big screen' and it got me really excited.
- dboon 8mo ago
  Yes! KDE is the only thing in the Linux world that legitimately looks better than the big competitors. Not always, and not all the time; programs that are really focused on design are still a cut above, but I truly believe that KDE looks (and feels!) better than macOS I don't understand why there aren't more folks like us shouting it from the rooftops. It's almost bizarre how good it looks.
  - jwrallie 8mo ago
    I’m curious about which distros are working well with Plasma, as I had some trouble with stability in the past. I have the feeling Plasma works better with rolling release.
    - pimeys 8mo ago
      I've been running two distros with Plasma: Bazzite OS and CachyOS. Both very different, and stellar with Plasma. I use CachyOS in my ThinkPad and in my Framework Desktop, for work. A stellar OS, has great defaults, is very fast and prioritizes KDE although you can do other WMs too if you're adventurous.
      - bikelang 8mo ago
        Bazzite has been so good to use it has me consisting dropping PopOS as my dev distro for Bluefin
    - ufmace 8mo ago
      Fedora works well with it for me, no complaints. Though I haven't yet used it through a major version update.
klinstar 8mo ago
[flagged]
- edaus 8mo ago
  The most AI reply ever
shevy-java 8mo ago
Does anyone know whether Nate's donation-daemon is disabled on this device, by default? Because if it is, then this invites to a critical follow-up question: aka WHY is it disabled there, but not by default elsewhere for regular users of KDE. Nate, via his biased blog entries, constantly tries to reason how vital it is to pressure people (sorry; "voluntarily remind them that donations are acceptable for the KDE devs") into donating to KDE (e. g. his self-promo "what a success story I just did, we made millions!"), so if it is disabled on the TV device, it actually means that regular desktop users are a second-class citizen to him. KDE really took a strange turn ever since Nate took control of the project. Personally I much prefer the oldschool KDE approach; now suddenly we have "systemd is the only future" and other oddities way aside from the pester-Robin-Hood-daemon demanding more of your moneyz ...
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- The_President 8mo ago
  For the sake of long term success of the KDE project - it needs a major public financial, secuirity, and bug audit. It would be worth seeing if the KDE project would use donation money to cover outside firms to audit their operations and code.
  - OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
    They have an Expenses breakdown in each year's fundraiser[0] page. https://kde.org/fundraisers/ https://kde.org/fundraisers/
  - account42 8mo ago
    There is a term for making user-hostile changes for the sake of success: enshittification. I'd rather not have free software turn into shareware.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
  They made 467,889 euros in donations in 2024. This is the desktop environment that is an incumbent to taking market share from Windows. Is your comment serious?
freshnode 8mo ago
Unpopular opinion, perhaps - isn't this just tech looking for a problem to solve? The fact that the apps I would actually care about having on real estate on my front room seem to be nowhere to be seen is kinda glaring from my perspective... I know there's a certain purism to having Firefox front and center... But really?
- yjftsjthsd-h 8mo ago
  I'd argue that that's orthogonal; this is making the general UI work well on a TV, then apps get populated into that. And honestly I'll bet that for most uses Firefox working well is what you want, since a handful of shortcuts to open Firefox to assorted streaming services would do the trick quite nicely.
  - dqv 8mo ago
    I immediately envisioned having my feed reader as a FireFox shortcut and being able to navigate to YouTube videos from that. Another thing is that I've found certain old movies can only be streamed from weird websites - as in https://weirdstreamingwebsite is the only licensed entity to have it. I could either buy a VHS (which is what we did) or stream it. But since a physical copy might not be available, the only option would be to use that weird website to stream it. There is no app!
- drnick1 8mo ago
  Firefox, and airmouse, and an adblocker are the main tools to free yourself from commercial streaming services.
mattcantstop 8mo ago
This combined with a tv that had tactile buttons again would be nice! So tired of the buttonless TVs now, or the buttons that have no tactile feedback so you don't know what you are doing in the dark. Like no tactile controls in cars, this was also a mistake for TVs
evolve2k 8mo ago
> I just want to help, throw a task at me! > Great! We always need help. In order to find something that you find fun and rewarding to work on, a good first step is to find out which itch you have with Plasma Bigscreen, and how it can be scratched. What's nagging you? Now give us a shout-out, best via the Plasma mailing list. You can also make yourself known in the Matrix channel. There's plenty to do, tasks for every skill and level, and you'll find it's fun to work on and learn from each other. https://plasma-bigscreen.org/contributing https://plasma-bigscreen.org/contributing 1. Open issues on Gitlab: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen/-/issues https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen/-/issues 2. Join the Plasma mailing list here: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel 3. Join the Matrix channel and say you want a task here: https://matrix.to/#/%23plasma-bigscreen:kde.org https://matrix.to/#/%23plasma-bigscreen:kde.org
zer0zzz 8mo ago
This looks good
hsbauauvhabzb 8mo ago
This is cool, I’m curious to try, are there any competing OSS projects in this space that I should compare?
- wao0uuno 8mo ago
  LibreELEC/Kodi
aucisson_masque 8mo ago
How you're going to be able to use Firefox or thunderbird with a tv remote ? It's great that they work on a tv ui for kde but I feel like it's really not going to work well on anything but a monitor with mouse and keyboard.
- vermilingua 8mo ago
  Most modern TVs (not to mention SBCs you could just connect with HDMI) have bluetooth/USB for keyboard & mouse
- drnick1 8mo ago
  You can use an airmouse remote for that.
IshKebab 8mo ago
Why have they done the stupid LG thing and wasted half the screen on empty background? I don't understand it.
atoav 8mo ago
If you have regular KDE I urge you to just shake your mouse vigorously for ca. a minute. The cursor has this mouse finding feature where the mouse cursor gets bigger if you shake it. It can get comically big, like fill the whole screen big. One of the best features I have ever seen.
- wao0uuno 8mo ago
  I discovered it yesterday by accident. Not the feature but the fact the cursor just keeps on growing and growing. Kinda funny but also possibly a bug.
- einr 8mo ago
  This feature is borrowed from macOS, but on macOS it doesn't grow indefinitely.
  - 71bw 8mo ago
    ...and yet overall its done better than on Mac, because in full-screen apps or 3D games it doesn't start covering your view:-)
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
xrd 8mo ago
I can't for the life of me figure out if this is a way to put KDE on my TV by overwriting the existing OS, or if this is something to install on a computer which I then plug my TV into via HDMI. I'm not being lazy here but I have reviewed this site and outbound links. And, I have reviewed the threads there. I'm very interested in repurposing my LG Smart TV and have been hesitant about installing a software package on it. If I brick the TV I'm fearful my kids will burn me at the stake. I don't see a listed hardware matrix, but do see a link to enter into the matrix server and ask questions. I don't see packages or a repository to add. I think llms generally produce quite a bit of slop content but I think they could be used to explain open source projects a bit better. This seems like an opportunity.
- evolve2k 8mo ago
  I could totally wrong, but my assumption is that you’d get a small dedicated box (mini PC) that has an display port/hdmi/lightning port and usb ports and plug that into your TV like you would an Apple TV. A remote control with wifi would work pretty easily by being connected into usb port, just like a wireless mouse. Something like an ASUS NUC comes to mind for me but it’s designed to work with anything that you can install Linux on. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=asus+nuc&_trksid=p4624852.m4084.l1313 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=asus+nuc&_trksid=p46248...
  - xrd 8mo ago
    Ok. That makes sense. I wonder if you can then use Netflix and other streaming services? I have a Chromecast device and could probably just switch the HDMI to use that. I can use Netflix on my Linux laptop but I haven't tried Disney and I would very much doubt Apple+ would work on KDE.
darkwater 8mo ago
Since this is not going to be released any time soon, any suggestions on what could be used to be a TV UI for Jellyfin? It should just show that, nothing else. Currently I'm using a Nintendo Switch with Switchfin and it's pretty neat but sometimes even transcoded streams stutter or make the fan go brrrrr
- reedlaw 8mo ago
  Plasma Bigscreen has been around for 6 years: https://itsfoss.com/news/plasma-bigscreen-comeback/ https://itsfoss.com/news/plasma-bigscreen-comeback/
  - darkwater 8mo ago
    I was referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283124 Anyway, I will try it in its current status. I basically need a launcher for the desktop Jellyfin app and not much more
theandrewbailey 8mo ago
I work in the refurb division of an e-waste recycling company. While I prefer XFCE in general, KDE works much better on touchscreens. I have a handful of old first gen Microsoft Surface Hubs sitting around. I wonder if this Bigscreen mode supports touch, if so it might be awesome on a 55" (or 84") touchscreen.
- 0xedd 8mo ago
  [dead]
ajot 8mo ago
Of note: Plasma Bigscreen was sort of revived and rejuvenated last year by a Plasma Mobile dev https://espi.dev/posts/2025/07/plasma-bigscreen/ https://espi.dev/posts/2025/07/plasma-bigscreen/
jrm4 8mo ago
At the risk of whatever, I feel like there might be a "market" for something like the "OpenBox" version of this - or perhaps what I'm saying is even using something like Openbox to get the minimalist version of this thing. Seems to me a 10-foot interface almost by definition doesn't need the complexity of a KDE; you need to launch apps from "big rectangles on the screen" instead of like a Start Menu(and probably configure those to be 10 foot friendly) -- and MAYBE a few widgets and that's it. I've always wondered why that doesn't seem to exist, and now probably with vibe coding may just work on it myself.
- ducktastic 8mo ago
  I'm totally with you on this and a great idea. Always used flux/openbox whenever I could on my own workstations, and the idea that it could be used for a big screen device would be great.
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
  Joe's Window manager might be a better choice than Openbox (imo) if someone does want to work on it. Maybe FLTK/FLWM can be interesting as well.
- iririririr 8mo ago
  and after you launch the app, then what? are you rewriting chrome or firefox? regular kde is usable enough on my tv from the couch, just bump font size and 200% scaling. done. these ideas are reminiscent of a time people thought kiosk modes were a good idea. what one call complexity most people can being able to do anything at all.
  - jrm4 8mo ago
    I have no idea what you're getting at here; I already use firefox from the couch?
- ritlo 8mo ago
  Build it on Retroarch and you don’t even need X/Wayland. And the menu/launching functionality is done, you’d just be making a theme for it. Really if someone made a WebKit “core” and a Jellyfin client “core” (which, actually, you might get “for free” with the browser if you can tolerate web bloat on your platform) under libretro it’d be a pretty damn capable set-top-box UI. All the “cores” right now are games/emulators, but they don’t have to be.
kogasa240p 8mo ago
Might use this when I finally set up my media server pc, I know Kodi is optimal but I do want to use that computer for other server related things.
StevenNunez 8mo ago
Please take my Samsung TV interface
arikrahman 8mo ago
So when they said Plasma TVs would be the next big thing, this is what they meant. Jolly good show.
prmoustache 8mo ago
I just scale my regular desktop to 133 or 150% when I plug my laptop to my video projector and use that old cordless keyboard/trackpad combo from microsoft or logitech (can't remember and can't verify right now, thise with a usb receptor) I bought 2 decades ago. I don't really think a specific TV like interface would make it more user friendly really. It is much faster to browse and select files than on any remote based interface I have ever used on dedicated devices (or video game consoles). Turns out we have never made any better device than a keyboard to type search words :-) I could use kdeconnect to control a lot of stuff like volume / play/pause / next buttons from my smartphone but I don't even do that as the keyboard+trackpad combo is always available next to me anyway.
account42 8mo ago
Cool. Can they make it so it doesn't move all your windows around whenever you turn on/off or when KWin crashes first?

673 points by PaulHoule 8mo ago

pixelmelt 8mo ago

Wow this is big, what's the best device/remote stack to use it with?

drnick1 8mo ago
For streaming, any mini-PC (e.g. N100 or a used thin client) paired with an airmouse remote (I use a Pepperjobs remote). If you want to use Steam on that machine and play modern games however, then you basically need a gaming PC and an Xbox controller.

DiJu519 8mo ago

What kind of "Remote" would one use to mimic say an Android TV box or normal cable company Set-Top experience?

accurrent 8mo ago
I use kde connect with my android for my htpc. Works nicely enough on stoxk kde.
lynndotpy 8mo ago
This is listed on the linked page. KDE makes the excellent KDE Connect. You can also use a TV remote, game controller, or keyboard and mouse.
haunter 8mo ago
Unified Remote with my phone https://www.unifiedremote.com/ https://www.unifiedremote.com/
JoshTriplett 8mo ago
There are many bluetooth remotes you can use for this. You may want one that has a built-in keyboard, or just one with arrows and a handful of buttons.
drnick1 8mo ago
My suggestion would be an airmouse remote, possibly with an built-in keyboard. This is because sooner or later you will want to use a web browser to stream content, and a mouse is incredibly convenient for that.
PufPufPuf 8mo ago
I have this one, acts like a mouse (gyroscope) and keyboard (arrows, back, home, vol+- on the front side, almost-full qwerty on the back). https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860823468.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006860823468.html
herzzolf 8mo ago
If your HTPC supports HDMI-CEC, it will just pass-through the inputs from the TV remote, no additional ones required.
suprjami 8mo ago
Look up "USB RF remote" on eBay. There are two common ones you'll see everywhere. I have one for my Kodi system.
r14c 8mo ago
I use KDE connect, it has a really nice remote input feature.

shablulman 8mo ago

[flagged]

olivierestsage 8mo ago

Big things from KDE lately. If you haven't tried it since the pre-Plasma days, I really recommend giving it a go. Fabulous as a general DE.

simonask 8mo ago
Just did recently. I remembered KDE as flexible but cluttered. It’s still flexible, but they really cleaned up nice!
- brendyn 8mo ago
  Try going in to edit mode you'll freak out if you not prepared
  - Pxtl 8mo ago
    Good. The edit mode is exactly the place I want to be overwhelmed with options.
cromka 8mo ago
I did, but I don't share the sentiment. Moved this year from macOS and KDE is over-engineered with little thought put into the UX. For example, try to take a screenshot. I was quite literally shaking my head for good couple minutes looking at this abomination. It's so extremely confusing, all over the place, bogged down with tons of switches, modes, it's like you need to spend 30 minutes to understand how this thing works and all the Whys. Took me couple days to realize it was an actual Photo app in its screenshot mode. If only they spent some of their increasing budget on some proper UX usability testing and not rely on their people's gut feelings and a "that'll do" mentality... Meanwhile, Gnome just works exactly like you'd expect it to. I said it before already, but Gnome is for people moving from macOS and KDE is for ex-Windows veterans. And, for the record, I don't want to praise Gnome's overly-minimalistic approach, either, which too gets annoying when you have to find an extension for every stupid extra setting beyond the defaults. But, all in all, I much prefer it over KDE and wouldn't switch back. Not to mention the aesthetics, because there's no comparison if one shares the Apple/Braun ideals on design. A plot twist here is that I am also a KDE app developer...

9dc 8mo ago

but it will be hard to play DRM protected media, eg Netflix on a device like this, right?

trueismywork 8mo ago
720p using widevine. I play it. It works. Even if I disable DRM in my main browser. And only isolate it to my Netflix account.
- haunter 8mo ago
  You can get 1080p on Linux with Opera https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081
  - SahAssar 8mo ago
    Weird, why just on opera? It uses the same engine (chromium) as many other browsers.
    - h4ch1 8mo ago
      I'm guessing because of a higher widevine certification level or a server-side policy? You can also spoof Opera's user agent and get 1080p on FF so guessing it's a server-side thing; since Linux has L3 widevine certification because no kernel level TEE
    - godelski 8mo ago
      I have no issues on Firefox FWIW. I haven't needed to spoof the user agent, though this is something I needed to back in the day when they literally blocked FF's user agent.
- 3eb7988a1663 8mo ago
  Is that through a dedicated Netflix profile or is there a way to enable DRM per site?
himata4113 8mo ago

cromka 8mo ago

If this can run AndroidTV apps (don't see why it couldn't), then it can be a hit.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
drnick1 8mo ago
Bigscreen is just basically a DE. To run Android apps on Linux you can use Waydroid. But yes, you can absolutely combine Bigscreen, Waydroid and a few other apps such as VacuumTube and Steam in fullscreen mode to create the ultimate free/libre streaming/gaming console.
- mongol 8mo ago
  VacuumTube is fantastic

kingo55 8mo ago

Are there existing alternatives to this? I use KDE, but I have also heard Steam OS has something similar.

himata4113 8mo ago
steamos is just kde.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8mo ago
  SteamOS uses KDE for their "desktop" session, but does their own thing for the normal gaming mode.

sho_hn 8mo ago

Just to manage expectations: Big Screen is a fairly old project at this point, that has always had a relatively small number of people showing it some love (though I understand recently there's been an uptick again). This is not a new product announcement from us, nor a key focus of the community. That is not the disparage the work being done there in any way, but this most likely isn't quite Kodi just yet.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
nsxwolf 8mo ago
[flagged]
- accurrent 8mo ago
  Im an oss maintainer and recently the slop Ive had to deal with is excruciating. Theres nothing wrong with using AI for code, but generating 10prs that are all broken cause you have no idea what youre doing and hoping to get into GSoC is nonsense.
drnick1 8mo ago
> but this most likely isn't quite Kodi just yet. Kodi is incredibly limited though, and does not come close to the flexibility of Plasma Bigscreen. The latter is just a UI optimized for using a PC from a couch, which means that you can use any regular desktop app, including Kodi, web browsers for streaming content, and Steam for playing games. Kodi on the other hand does not even allow you to play YT videos without using some buggy add-on that requires registering an API key with Google (no thanks).
- wao0uuno 8mo ago
  Also Kodis interface is terrible. I couldn't make a more convoluted and hard to navigate interface for TVs even if I tried.
  - 8mo ago

godelski 8mo ago

This is really cool and I'd love to see TVs ship with it. There's a lack of innovation these days and I think the only way to bring it back is to recognize that computers are environments and people need to be able to build on them. With TVs becoming more powerful this could be a big win. Make it easy so my aging tech illiterate parents can use it (looks like it does the job, at least as well as any other) but also hackable for people like us, to fix bugs and drive innovation. My TV is currently a monitor for my computer, so something like this even works for me in the same way steam big picture does. For work, I ssh in. One thing that helps is I use ydotool and my phone and laptop can easily be a keyboard

socalgal2 8mo ago

This sounds awesome but reading the comments it sounds not quite there yet? Right now I use an AppleTV with Kodi installed via developer account. Unfortunately, Kodi on AppleTV is not well supported so it crashes a ton. I'm not much of an Apple dev. After much gnashing of teeth I managed to get a from source build running so I could maybe look into why it crashes and contribute but I've never debugged an AppleTV app and even trying to switch to using the simulator which I suspect is better for debugging, I couldn't figure it out. But, quite often I just wish to get some other small box for Kodi. Except I don't want 2 boxes, one for Kodi and one for other proprietary apps (Crunchyroll, Twitch, Netflix, ...) Any suggestions?

brcmthrowaway 8mo ago
Claude ?
- socalgal2 8mo ago
  Thanks for the push. It worked.
J_tt 8mo ago
I’ve just moved from Kodi on a Linux box to Jellyfin and Infuse on an Apple TV, so far fantastic experience
- s0rce 8mo ago
  I also moved from Kodi to Jellyfin. I have an ubuntu machine as the server and an Nvidia shield with Android connected to the TV as a client. Works great and was much simpler to keep working right than Kodi. Although Kodi didn't need any server side software except SMB shares.
- ritlo 8mo ago
  Same set-up here. Had tried many times over something like 15 years to get Kodi/XBMC working well. Nobody else could/would ever use it (the UI is so bad) and I bet I spent about 50% as much time screwing around to set it up and maintain it as I ever spent watching stuff on it. Jellyfin, at first with the official client on Roku then on Infuse on AppleTV when x265 hardware decoding started becoming a requirement (my server is too weak to transcode) has been everything I wanted Kodi to be. Web interface is great, I share it with a couple friends over Tailscale. Wife and kids and visitors use Infuse, no problem, no complaints, no help needed. My use-to-fiddling ratio is probably literally 100x better than with Kodi. I have spent overall less total time messing with it than with Kodi, even including figuring out solutions for things like YouTube videos.

amelius 8mo ago

Now we only need a TV that doesn't send screenshots back to the vendor.

drnick1 8mo ago
This is easy, don't connect your TV to the Internet and use it as a monitor for a mini PC running Plasma Bigscreen.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 8mo ago
  > don't connect your TV to the Internet 5G fixes this
  - amelius 8mo ago
    Yeah, in the future all TVs will be like high end cars today.
  - drnick1 8mo ago
    Don't buy such a TV, or mod it by removing the cellular modem. Same problem with cars, but generally quite easily solved.
    - account42 8mo ago
      For cars that's going to be illegal (or at least make it illegal to use the vehicle on public roads) at some point if it isn't already in your jurisdiction.
- amelius 8mo ago
  If enough people do this, new TVs will stop working without an internet connection.
  - drnick1 8mo ago
    If enough people do this, and refuse to buy TVs that do not work without an Internet connection, manufacturers will get the message and not make such TVs.

functionmouse 8mo ago

I've got Windows 7 at 125% running on a 70some inch TV off a tiny Optiplex Micro with an i3 or something, and a fork of modern Firefox for w7, hardware accel and all. I use my phone as a bluetooth touchpad/keyboard with an app that was maybe 5 bucks. Best 10-foot interface I've ever used. Everything works exactly as expected, no fuss, no gotchas, no friction, no workflow-breaking updates. And I never lose the remote! This (plasma-bigscreen) is going to fail, as 10-foot interfaces historically do. It is a waste of good developer time and focus. Free Desktop people keep obsessing over ill-advised moonshots as a form of escapism; no one wants to address the fundamentally broken core desktop model. Papercut bugs are boring and solving them is thankless. Working on a shiny new TV mode interface looks better on a resume. Meanwhile the rest of the world is pulling their hair out over Windows 11 and macOS Tahoe because there are still no feasible alternatives for normal human beings.

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
gzread 8mo ago
If 10foot is ill-advised then why do you use one?

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

cromka 8mo ago

So... Steam TV Box confirmed?

whateverboat 8mo ago

KDE is the best DE out there.

himata4113 8mo ago

"Built on Modern Linux Technologies" > D-bus alright! on a more serious note, should remove that incase that was put there by AI.

phanimahesh 8mo ago
Wait dbus isn't considered modern? What's the alternative these days?
- himata4113 8mo ago
  There's not, but it's also a very very old technology - definitely not 'modern' linux. It has a lot of problems especially with protocol standartization and permissions. You can tell something and you might get something back or you might listen for something and get garbage instead. The maker of hyprland has shipped an alternative though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46278857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46278857
aidenn0 8mo ago
If I had to guess, I would guess that this statement was put there before ChatGPT existed. [edit] Unless this text was buried deeper than the front page and then promoted, I was wrong. That language was not there last November according to archive.org

em3rgent0rdr 8mo ago

Too bad can't access $CorpStreamingVideoService full-resolution on linux :(

drnick1 8mo ago
Get your videos from other sources.

jcelerier 8mo ago

I'm really wondering about what is that ASIO4ALL uninstaller doing in there

while_true_ 8mo ago

"Plasma" is an awkward name for a television app. First image that comes to mind is the old plasma 50-inch I used to have. Damn thing weighed nearly 100 pounds and was really power-hungry.

hnlmorg 8mo ago
“Plasma” isn’t the name of the television app. It’s “Big Screen”. “Plasma” just refers to the desktop environment: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/ https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/ So this is a “Big Screen” UI for KDE Plasma.
- account42 8mo ago
  Plasma was also a stupid name for the DE, especially when it already had a better name that everyone knows.
64738 8mo ago
Yes! I still use my Panasonic 50" plasma as my daily driver. I still love it, it's an amazing TV :D
cheeze 8mo ago
I loved my Plasma TV. Bought it as an intern dirt cheap off of some dude at my company who posted it in a email group. He upgraded to the latest and greatest and just wanted it hauled out. Picture quality (for the time) was incredible! It also doubled as the worlds best space heater. My god it was power hungry.

ehnto 8mo ago

Super cool, I have been extremely pleased with my switch to KDE. I have used MacOS as a daily, I have used Windows 95-Win10, I have used various linux distros all for long periods of time at work and home. KDE Plasma has really hit the sweetspot for me, it's super usable daily and still has easy customisability. Thanks to all the effort poured into Proton I have even replaced my gaming PC with Arch/KDE plasma with really very little stress. I am VR gaming, on linux, on AAA titles, with no messing around, if this isn't the year of linux desktop then it will never be.

akshatjiwan 8mo ago

KDE is amazing. For an open-source project the desktop environment looks really slick. Not that any other desktop environments are particularly ugly but KDE can compete with the best commercially developed desktops. For a moment though I thought that this story was about the launch of a new plasma TV 'big screen' and it got me really excited.

dboon 8mo ago
Yes! KDE is the only thing in the Linux world that legitimately looks better than the big competitors. Not always, and not all the time; programs that are really focused on design are still a cut above, but I truly believe that KDE looks (and feels!) better than macOS I don't understand why there aren't more folks like us shouting it from the rooftops. It's almost bizarre how good it looks.
- jwrallie 8mo ago
  I’m curious about which distros are working well with Plasma, as I had some trouble with stability in the past. I have the feeling Plasma works better with rolling release.
  - pimeys 8mo ago
    I've been running two distros with Plasma: Bazzite OS and CachyOS. Both very different, and stellar with Plasma. I use CachyOS in my ThinkPad and in my Framework Desktop, for work. A stellar OS, has great defaults, is very fast and prioritizes KDE although you can do other WMs too if you're adventurous.
    - bikelang 8mo ago
      Bazzite has been so good to use it has me consisting dropping PopOS as my dev distro for Bluefin
  - ufmace 8mo ago
    Fedora works well with it for me, no complaints. Though I haven't yet used it through a major version update.

klinstar 8mo ago

[flagged]

edaus 8mo ago
The most AI reply ever

shevy-java 8mo ago

Does anyone know whether Nate's donation-daemon is disabled on this device, by default? Because if it is, then this invites to a critical follow-up question: aka WHY is it disabled there, but not by default elsewhere for regular users of KDE. Nate, via his biased blog entries, constantly tries to reason how vital it is to pressure people (sorry; "voluntarily remind them that donations are acceptable for the KDE devs") into donating to KDE (e. g. his self-promo "what a success story I just did, we made millions!"), so if it is disabled on the TV device, it actually means that regular desktop users are a second-class citizen to him. KDE really took a strange turn ever since Nate took control of the project. Personally I much prefer the oldschool KDE approach; now suddenly we have "systemd is the only future" and other oddities way aside from the pester-Robin-Hood-daemon demanding more of your moneyz ...

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
The_President 8mo ago
For the sake of long term success of the KDE project - it needs a major public financial, secuirity, and bug audit. It would be worth seeing if the KDE project would use donation money to cover outside firms to audit their operations and code.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
  They have an Expenses breakdown in each year's fundraiser[0] page. https://kde.org/fundraisers/ https://kde.org/fundraisers/
- account42 8mo ago
  There is a term for making user-hostile changes for the sake of success: enshittification. I'd rather not have free software turn into shareware.
OsrsNeedsf2P 8mo ago
They made 467,889 euros in donations in 2024. This is the desktop environment that is an incumbent to taking market share from Windows. Is your comment serious?

freshnode 8mo ago

Unpopular opinion, perhaps - isn't this just tech looking for a problem to solve? The fact that the apps I would actually care about having on real estate on my front room seem to be nowhere to be seen is kinda glaring from my perspective... I know there's a certain purism to having Firefox front and center... But really?

yjftsjthsd-h 8mo ago
I'd argue that that's orthogonal; this is making the general UI work well on a TV, then apps get populated into that. And honestly I'll bet that for most uses Firefox working well is what you want, since a handful of shortcuts to open Firefox to assorted streaming services would do the trick quite nicely.
- dqv 8mo ago
  I immediately envisioned having my feed reader as a FireFox shortcut and being able to navigate to YouTube videos from that. Another thing is that I've found certain old movies can only be streamed from weird websites - as in https://weirdstreamingwebsite is the only licensed entity to have it. I could either buy a VHS (which is what we did) or stream it. But since a physical copy might not be available, the only option would be to use that weird website to stream it. There is no app!
drnick1 8mo ago
Firefox, and airmouse, and an adblocker are the main tools to free yourself from commercial streaming services.

mattcantstop 8mo ago

This combined with a tv that had tactile buttons again would be nice! So tired of the buttonless TVs now, or the buttons that have no tactile feedback so you don't know what you are doing in the dark. Like no tactile controls in cars, this was also a mistake for TVs

evolve2k 8mo ago

> I just want to help, throw a task at me! > Great! We always need help. In order to find something that you find fun and rewarding to work on, a good first step is to find out which itch you have with Plasma Bigscreen, and how it can be scratched. What's nagging you? Now give us a shout-out, best via the Plasma mailing list. You can also make yourself known in the Matrix channel. There's plenty to do, tasks for every skill and level, and you'll find it's fun to work on and learn from each other. https://plasma-bigscreen.org/contributing https://plasma-bigscreen.org/contributing 1. Open issues on Gitlab: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen/-/issues https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen/-/issues 2. Join the Plasma mailing list here: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel 3. Join the Matrix channel and say you want a task here: https://matrix.to/#/%23plasma-bigscreen:kde.org https://matrix.to/#/%23plasma-bigscreen:kde.org

zer0zzz 8mo ago

This looks good

hsbauauvhabzb 8mo ago

This is cool, I’m curious to try, are there any competing OSS projects in this space that I should compare?

wao0uuno 8mo ago
LibreELEC/Kodi

aucisson_masque 8mo ago

How you're going to be able to use Firefox or thunderbird with a tv remote ? It's great that they work on a tv ui for kde but I feel like it's really not going to work well on anything but a monitor with mouse and keyboard.

vermilingua 8mo ago
Most modern TVs (not to mention SBCs you could just connect with HDMI) have bluetooth/USB for keyboard & mouse
drnick1 8mo ago
You can use an airmouse remote for that.

IshKebab 8mo ago

Why have they done the stupid LG thing and wasted half the screen on empty background? I don't understand it.

atoav 8mo ago

If you have regular KDE I urge you to just shake your mouse vigorously for ca. a minute. The cursor has this mouse finding feature where the mouse cursor gets bigger if you shake it. It can get comically big, like fill the whole screen big. One of the best features I have ever seen.

wao0uuno 8mo ago
I discovered it yesterday by accident. Not the feature but the fact the cursor just keeps on growing and growing. Kinda funny but also possibly a bug.
einr 8mo ago
This feature is borrowed from macOS, but on macOS it doesn't grow indefinitely.
- 71bw 8mo ago
  ...and yet overall its done better than on Mac, because in full-screen apps or 3D games it doesn't start covering your view:-)

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

xrd 8mo ago

I can't for the life of me figure out if this is a way to put KDE on my TV by overwriting the existing OS, or if this is something to install on a computer which I then plug my TV into via HDMI. I'm not being lazy here but I have reviewed this site and outbound links. And, I have reviewed the threads there. I'm very interested in repurposing my LG Smart TV and have been hesitant about installing a software package on it. If I brick the TV I'm fearful my kids will burn me at the stake. I don't see a listed hardware matrix, but do see a link to enter into the matrix server and ask questions. I don't see packages or a repository to add. I think llms generally produce quite a bit of slop content but I think they could be used to explain open source projects a bit better. This seems like an opportunity.

evolve2k 8mo ago
I could totally wrong, but my assumption is that you’d get a small dedicated box (mini PC) that has an display port/hdmi/lightning port and usb ports and plug that into your TV like you would an Apple TV. A remote control with wifi would work pretty easily by being connected into usb port, just like a wireless mouse. Something like an ASUS NUC comes to mind for me but it’s designed to work with anything that you can install Linux on. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=asus+nuc&_trksid=p4624852.m4084.l1313 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=asus+nuc&_trksid=p46248...
- xrd 8mo ago
  Ok. That makes sense. I wonder if you can then use Netflix and other streaming services? I have a Chromecast device and could probably just switch the HDMI to use that. I can use Netflix on my Linux laptop but I haven't tried Disney and I would very much doubt Apple+ would work on KDE.

darkwater 8mo ago

Since this is not going to be released any time soon, any suggestions on what could be used to be a TV UI for Jellyfin? It should just show that, nothing else. Currently I'm using a Nintendo Switch with Switchfin and it's pretty neat but sometimes even transcoded streams stutter or make the fan go brrrrr

reedlaw 8mo ago
Plasma Bigscreen has been around for 6 years: https://itsfoss.com/news/plasma-bigscreen-comeback/ https://itsfoss.com/news/plasma-bigscreen-comeback/
- darkwater 8mo ago
  I was referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47283124 Anyway, I will try it in its current status. I basically need a launcher for the desktop Jellyfin app and not much more

theandrewbailey 8mo ago

I work in the refurb division of an e-waste recycling company. While I prefer XFCE in general, KDE works much better on touchscreens. I have a handful of old first gen Microsoft Surface Hubs sitting around. I wonder if this Bigscreen mode supports touch, if so it might be awesome on a 55" (or 84") touchscreen.

0xedd 8mo ago
[dead]

ajot 8mo ago

Of note: Plasma Bigscreen was sort of revived and rejuvenated last year by a Plasma Mobile dev https://espi.dev/posts/2025/07/plasma-bigscreen/ https://espi.dev/posts/2025/07/plasma-bigscreen/

jrm4 8mo ago

At the risk of whatever, I feel like there might be a "market" for something like the "OpenBox" version of this - or perhaps what I'm saying is even using something like Openbox to get the minimalist version of this thing. Seems to me a 10-foot interface almost by definition doesn't need the complexity of a KDE; you need to launch apps from "big rectangles on the screen" instead of like a Start Menu(and probably configure those to be 10 foot friendly) -- and MAYBE a few widgets and that's it. I've always wondered why that doesn't seem to exist, and now probably with vibe coding may just work on it myself.

ducktastic 8mo ago
I'm totally with you on this and a great idea. Always used flux/openbox whenever I could on my own workstations, and the idea that it could be used for a big screen device would be great.
Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
Joe's Window manager might be a better choice than Openbox (imo) if someone does want to work on it. Maybe FLTK/FLWM can be interesting as well.
iririririr 8mo ago
and after you launch the app, then what? are you rewriting chrome or firefox? regular kde is usable enough on my tv from the couch, just bump font size and 200% scaling. done. these ideas are reminiscent of a time people thought kiosk modes were a good idea. what one call complexity most people can being able to do anything at all.
- jrm4 8mo ago
  I have no idea what you're getting at here; I already use firefox from the couch?
ritlo 8mo ago
Build it on Retroarch and you don’t even need X/Wayland. And the menu/launching functionality is done, you’d just be making a theme for it. Really if someone made a WebKit “core” and a Jellyfin client “core” (which, actually, you might get “for free” with the browser if you can tolerate web bloat on your platform) under libretro it’d be a pretty damn capable set-top-box UI. All the “cores” right now are games/emulators, but they don’t have to be.

kogasa240p 8mo ago

Might use this when I finally set up my media server pc, I know Kodi is optimal but I do want to use that computer for other server related things.

StevenNunez 8mo ago

Please take my Samsung TV interface

arikrahman 8mo ago

So when they said Plasma TVs would be the next big thing, this is what they meant. Jolly good show.

prmoustache 8mo ago

I just scale my regular desktop to 133 or 150% when I plug my laptop to my video projector and use that old cordless keyboard/trackpad combo from microsoft or logitech (can't remember and can't verify right now, thise with a usb receptor) I bought 2 decades ago. I don't really think a specific TV like interface would make it more user friendly really. It is much faster to browse and select files than on any remote based interface I have ever used on dedicated devices (or video game consoles). Turns out we have never made any better device than a keyboard to type search words :-) I could use kdeconnect to control a lot of stuff like volume / play/pause / next buttons from my smartphone but I don't even do that as the keyboard+trackpad combo is always available next to me anyway.

account42 8mo ago

Cool. Can they make it so it doesn't move all your windows around whenever you turn on/off or when KWin crashes first?