My main concern is replacing the remote, because bluetooth on linux is quite awful.
Im guessing run kodi is the other solution? I want the SO to be able to use it as easily as the smart tv, which is of course riddled with ads and downloading random shit on my network that I hate (20 gigs to Disney + in a month. I dont have any subs. Wtf is it downloading? I blocked it now ofc)
For reference, trying to axe the smart tv and use my atari vcs with mint on it to fulfill those needs. It should have the power and I want to keep the sleek look and not have an actual pc in the room.
For software, Kodi is very good and probably easy enough for your SO to operate.
If you want a very small, low-power device, consider a Raspberry Pi 5 (or maybe a RPi 4 if you don’t need high-end A/V output). Raspberry Pis are tiny, and unlike most other single-board computers, their video processor correctly handles fractional frame rates that are common in broadcast video. LibreELEC is a ready-made operating system for these devices, centered around Kodi.
If you want more versatile (and more expensive) hardware, NUC-class mini-PCs are often praised for use as media centers.
If you want to build your own system, consider an AMD Zen 5 or Zen 4 CPU, or maybe Zen 3. Most of these have an integrated RNDA2 GPU. That iGPU only has a couple of cores, so you won’t be doing much 3D gaming without adding a graphics card, but they are more than enough for hardware-accelerated video decoding/encoding.
I’ve got a little NUC-type computer (Beelink or something) that runs Linux Mint. I like the desktop interface for switching between browser, YouTube apps and Jellyfin. We use a full size wireless keyboard with a trackpad.
This is the air mouse remote I recommend with a dedicated 2.4 GHz connection. Also, recommend Plasma Bigscreen QT6 version.
I have a Pi3 B+ in the minivan for the rear seat entertainment system. Runs OSMC, uses a 128GB flash drive for media storage, and for the remote, I programmed a Flirc IR receiver to a spare Roku remote. OSMC is also easy to lock down so nothing gets deleted nor settings changed by accident.
On the OS side, I went with an inmutable linux (opensuse microos), so it auto updates and auto reboot (when needed), auto login into my DE, and starts Kodi. In practice, everytime I turn on the tv, Kodi is ready, and the system updated.
It has failed once, the update mangled the wifi setup, but being able to boot from a previous system snapshot I reverted it and got it working again in no time.
I wonder if I could try an os like that. Im kind of heavily invested in mint already though. I have cachy os on an old turion laptop and it runs well enough (100% cpu usage like all the time, ha)
If you don’t want to rely on Bluetooth, there are lots of keyboards, mice, and media remotes with dedicated dongles.
I use one of these, for example: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07ZKL66GY
Seconding this. I got the cheapest piece of shit 2.4ghz media controller thing from five below and it works flawlessly on both Ubuntu and Debian. Bluetooth might be a pita, but USB based stuff tends to work just fine as long as it doesn’t need some weird proprietary software to enable functionality.
My setup is a pi4 with OSMC that is just Kodi all setup, plugged into hdmi with CEC to allow remote pass through.
That pi has an nfs mount to my jellyfin server and the movies and TV shows indexed off the NFS drive.
It’s setup is so simple even our now 6 year old can put a movie on
Do you get the “watched” feedback to Jellyfin from Kodi ? To tick the episodes you’ve already watched.
Yep, it is possible, you have to look for the proper addon. Iirc, there are 2 ways of setting it up, one fully syncs on kodi startup, and the other just the diff.
I dont, I think there might be a plugin either in kodi or jellyfin
This is the way.
I use I think this one: http://www.riitek.com/product/254.html
It has orange buttons that you program to the TV (I have on/off, volume, and changing input source) then the white buttons and the direction pad to move around and play things in Kodi.
Ah damn, that doesn’t have a backlight, does it?
No backlight, no. Realistically we are just using the direction arrows/ok circle part most of the time anyway, you can easily feel it in the dark. But I’m sure other similar products with a backlight exist. I went with this one as it’s relatively cheap and has a keyboard on the back, but there are heaps of options.
I have one of these and it was quite good, but I don’t know why but we just gravitated to a Logitech K400
I have one of these for the PC connected to the TV, but the LibreElec install works really well with the Rii i25, it’s much easier to just scroll through and find what you want to play like on a smart TV.
Get a mini PC with an intel n100 and get a flirc remote adapter. Low power, quiet and plays 4k content perfectly in Kodi
this may seem weird, but steam bigpicture mode is great for a tv. you can make webapps for stuff like netflix, youtube, whatever with google chrome.
i think kde has/had a big mode for tvs, not sure if its still developed. never used it bc i dont much like kde.
kde bigscreen, its been unmaintained for a while one dev recently revived it you have to compile it in the meantime it hasnt been packaged by any distro yet
kde connect has a really good media controller/wii joystick mouse thing for your phone
I don’t have much issues with Bluetooth in Linux, works just fine on my Kodi installs, audio, remotes the whole kit. But I can recommends the G60S Pro remote. It has both 2.4Ghz and Bluetooth so you don’t have to rely on the Bluetooth if you don’t want to. Flip it and it has a keyboard, incredibly useful!
Before that I ran CEC remotes (found is kind of meh), IR receiver (worked fine enough), and other 2.4Ghz remotes (MX3 variants, including a Bluetooth one).
I also use the companion phone app, Kore, on a Android.
Like others here I’ve been running Kodi for nearly 20 years, has amazing spousal approval rate. I just redid my setup, PXE boot a couple of Pis and an x86_64 machine (and Qemu for testing) it’s a bit of a pain to share more than the libraries (my MySQL), but that’s really more than most people want anyway (and I did manage to share almost everything with some NFS trickery, advance config path substitution, bind mounts, etc).
I’ve been using a linux box auto-starting Kodi which is controlled by an MCE remote for about 10-15 years now. Both my partner (who is tech negative, seriously everyday they yell at their work laptop) and 5 year old kid at the time had no trouble with it. I personally love it. With the add-ons and such I’ve basically turned it in to a Home Entertainment Center. I’ve download Lutris and with a little tweaking I’m emulating a ton of old games and I’ve installed the Kodi add-on that lets me integrate Lutris to I don’t have to leave the Kodi environment and bale to desktop is which is great. I’ve also got an add on in Kodi to open Steam in big picture straight from a button on my Kodi favorites. So I can go from playing Slay the Spire on Steam to watch an episode of Scrubs to playing Mario Kart Double Dash in Dolphin, all with out seeing the desktop.
On the other hand I haven’t invested in one of those fancy remotes that lets me power on the PC so before I sit down I got turn on the PC which means the PC sits on a shelf in the living room. But to be honest we often leave it on for days on end, which I suspect racks up the power bills a bit, but lets me just turn on the TV and go. I also haven’t invested in a HDMI - CEC set up so I have to have two remotes one for powering on the TV and a second for everything else. And getting Linux to recognize my 3.1 soundbar is a forking nightmare it still only see it as a stereo soundbar but hey it still sound good.
Over all I really love the Kodi HTPC set up for the heft of added home gaming stuff,but if you’re looking for something more low profile I have a Raspberry PI running OpenElec stuck to the back of my bedroom TV with double-sided tape. OpenElec is a branch of the Kodi main steam for small PCs. The bonus on this is that the Pi’s have built in CEC so you will only need the one remote.I personally prefer Android TV for its app support.
I put Moode in a Raspberry Pi 4 and control it with my phone.
Think about it, what better remote do you want? You get album covers, lyrics, the works. You can even stream from your phone to the Pi.
