I setup a micro PC with Ubuntu and plugged it into my TV for media streaming, and was just wondering if there was a way to optimize the experience for non KBM
Personally, I use Kodi for that. It works very well with minimal keyboard and no mouse (though it can handle both), so much so that I’ve run it for years using only an IR remote.
This.
Using a CEC link will make things even more simple, but that might involve additional hardware. Those raspberry thingies have native CEC on hdmi. For x86 you might have to look at some extra hardware.
And of course, Kodi is an example of a 10 foot interface.
Awesome, I will look more into that!
I always have strange lag problems when I try to use it, even on powerful hardware. I think the audio visualization stuff is just buggy because going in and out of fullscreen takes ages and often crashes or freezes.
Kodi was designed for this. In the other hand, I’ve always found Kodi kind of mediocre for media management. I never got stuff like YouTube plugins to work reliably and the interface is kind of all over the place in my option, like a cable box from the early 2000s.
I’ve added Netflix and Jellyfin to my Steam Deck and they work surprisingly well with Steam’s controller interface. You should be able to replicate this with Steam Big Picture mode as well. If you have a gaming PC, this setup could also double as a Steam Link for gaming on the couch.
The basic setup was something like this: install Chrome or a Chrome fork of your choice, install whatever website you want to add as a PWA/offline application through the menu, then add that desktop item to Steam. Reload into gaming UI (or I guess big picture mode?) and you should be able use the controller to navigate a browser from there.
Depending on your controller of choice, you may also want to edit the controller’s key bindings in the Steam settings, i.e. make one of the buttons act as whatever key skips forward/back.
This setup only really works if you have some kind of existing UI you want to controlerify, like Netflix or Jellyfin. If you just have media files, this won’t work.
Alternatively, you may be able to set up Android TV on the mini PC through a distribution like lineageos. You get to decide if you want to go with the barebones default or if you want to add Google Play, but either way you should get a pretty usable TV interface out of that. With an HDMI CEC adapter you may even be able to use your existing TV remote to control it!
I use Jellyfin as a backend for my Kodi boxes (I have 3, and JF keeps them in sync). I used to have a YouTube plugin, but YT broke that this year.
Kodi works well.
Or if you do more gaming-things Steam’s Big Picture mode.
OpenGamepadUI works well as a FOSS alternative to Steam if you’d like that as well.
KDE has Plasma BigScreen. It even maps remotes to regular common keybinds so you can navigate apps without native support for that kind of use.
I haven’t seen it in the wild and I don’t think there are many apps that do integrate very well with it, but it exists to mess with.
Kodi is ideal for an HTPC
It is good if you watch TV or listen to music. I especially like kore
Flex Launcher.
@TheMonkeyLord #AntiMicroX is a good choice for mapping controllers to keyboard/mouse functions. I use it daily to control my computer from a flight-stick when I just want to lay back and watch stuff.
