I set up a Linux pc to replace my smart TV and add some gaming capabilites. It took some time but I learned quite a lot (Thanks to Debian and Arch wikis). And I haven’t missed any TV functionality.
The launcher is flex-launcher on a labwc environment/compositor on a Debian stable distro. (For testing and easy setup, I also did it on Ubuntu Gnome but I don’t need a full DE in the background that I don’t use. But it’s adaptable to other distros and DEs.)
It’s now fully usable with a gamepad including turning the TV on and off, so I have also fully replaced the TV remote.
I hope some people may find it interesting. It was also quite a lot of fun, actually.
Do you have to login all the time? I run mint on my TV on a mini pc and it’s fine but having to login is a pita. I tried to make it login less but it didn’t like it and I think it broke some things.
I’m using autologin and sleep mostly. I don’t have to enter my password at any time (except when doing root stuff to install programs but not in everyday use). On boot, I do have to enter my disk encryption password.
You can autologin through some options in systemctl, but if you use standard DEs such as Gnome or KDE, there should be an option in the settings.
I can’t believe I never heard of Flex-Launcher - it’s exactly what I’ve wanted for years. Every search for something like this would always bring up the never finished, forever worked on Plasma Bigscreen.
You should definitely do a write up on your set up. It would definitely be great for beginners to have this layout, especially on c/SelfHosting. Are you also running any containers, like Podman/Docker stuff or am Arrstack?
I’ll try to do a writeup.
No containers (I actually have zero experience with containers). But if you know how to use them, it should be possible.
Looks awesome! Thanks for this post, I’ve been looking to ditch the GoogleTV but all I could find was Plasma Bigscreen and that’s not quite ready yet.
Yeah, I’ve been looking/waiting for quite some time. hoping that a good solution would come along. I also tried Steam (big picture mode). But that still contains ads (for games) and is not that customizable. In the end, I’m really happy with flex-launcher.
Interested in how you got power on/off to work - I thought Linux couldn’t support ARC due to licensing?
Powering on/off is part of HDMI-CEC, right? And its unsupported in both Windows and Linux due to most consumer GPUs not supporting it. I think you need a USB adapter to inject the CEC code into the HDMI cable to make it work.
Ah CEC yes…I’m confusing my TLAs. I should probably do some actual research.
I’m powering on/off the TV through CEC, see my reply above: https://programming.dev/post/50315130/23805655
Thanks!
bump! Links etc would be great OP!
I’m pretty sure bitstreaming Dolby Atmos/TrueHD or DTS X/HDMA doesn’t work from Linux. So if you’re using an AV receiver with a surround sound system, you may still want to stick with Microslop. I’d be ecstatic if I was wrong about this, so if I am, someone, please correct me.
Bitstreaming/passthrough for lossless formats like Dolby TrueHD (including Atmos) and DTS-HD Master Audio (including DTS:X) works perfectly on Linux.Linux does not natively decode Dolby Atmos or DTS:X because it lacks the commercial licenses to process the spatial metadata. However, Linux excels at HDMI Audio Passthrough. Instead of processing the audio, your Linux machine treats the uncompressed bitstream like a raw data package and forwards it directly to your AV receiver via HDMI. The receiver recognizes the signal and handles the heavy decoding lifting.
When I look at the settings and the wiki, it says passthrough still won’t work with DTS-HD or Atmos:
Note: PulseAudio does not currently allow TrueHD or DTS-MA passthrough, this is a PulseAudio limitation and not a limitation of the Kodi implementation, in order to get 7.1 audio Multichannel Mode must be used
Very cool, what hardware are you using that supports CEC?
I’m using a Displayport to HDMI-adapter and then a regular HDMI-cable (so the PC needs a DP-output). There are also some other options, but this was the easiest for me. I got most info from the Arch wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDMI-CEC.
It also doesn’t work for all DP-HDMI-adapters, they need to be modern enough/support the protocol. From what I remember about finding the specific one I got, I think ones that support 8k should be good enough. I got one from Ugreen.
But what is the DisplayPort plugged into on the PC? Extremely few motherboards and GPUs support CEC in my experience…
It’s just on the DP-out of the PC. I tried it on two different PCs and it worked. From my understanding, it should be supported if the PC has DIsplayport 1.3 or newer. But maybe I was just lucky.
I then had to play around a bit with cec-ctl (with the help of the Arch and Ubuntu manual pages https://man.archlinux.org/man/cec-ctl.1.en https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man1/cec-ctl.1.html ). I think I also tried a bit with --cec-version-1.4, but I don’t remember the details (I only saved the scripts that were working).
Sorry if I can’t be of more help.
Do you use any streaming services e.g. Netflix, HBO, etc.?
If so, are you just using PWA front ends? Or running APKs?
Stremio, debrid and a good IPTV provider will get you everything for a year at less than Netflix costs for a month or two.
No, they can’t.
Sports just aren’t the same on pirate services, especially if you aren’t watching them live.
IPTV streams in HD and you can record shows on a schedule to watch later.
I’m not sure how much more clear I can be when I say that official sources for sports that I watch, provide significantly better experiences than pirating them.
If they didn’t, I wouldn’t pay for them.
Do you change the channel to the sport that is on? That’s what IPTV is.
How much different is your experience?
IPTV is not a suitable replacement for combat sports viewing as most events aren’t broadcast on linear TV.
To pirate combat sports, you’re mostly looking at streaming websites and torrents, which while doable, are both less than ideal.
Streaming sites frequently crash and freeze mid-fight, and don’t generally support rewinding, or pausing more than a few seconds.
Torrents aren’t terrible for next day viewing, but if I’m not watching it live, I greatly value how the streaming services will break out the event by each individual fight.
I’ve switched away from most streaming services. For one month, I watched Netflix in the browser. It’s a lower resolution, but works ok. Mostly, I download stuff, which is publically available or use public broadcasts like Arte.
Thanks. bookmarked to read later.
Neat!! How did you manage to get the gamepad functionality working?
It’s simply connected by bluetooth or by dongle and Debian managed to do everything. Flex-launcher also supports it by default. I added some more key-combinations using input remapper such as closing programs, returning to launcher, changing volume.
I actually had some problems with input remapper on Debian and had to install the latest release (the one from the repository didn’t work).
I should have looked at the projects page first, it even lists gamepad support as one of its main features. Intuitively expected it to be a separate program because I’ve never seen it supported natively before!
Yooo that’s sick! Very cool
I have a home theater PC and I was really interested in making it have a “TV interface”, but it turns out just the standard dash to dock (on the left), gsconnect, with big scaling and big icons works just fine, if not better :)
I tried some of that too. But for most desktop environments, the gamepad wouldn’t work.
But great that it works for you. Nice thing about Linux :)
Oh yeah, I don’t play game on it, we only watches YouTube and movies.
So GSConnect actually is a way better experience than any controller in my use case :)
I actually thought about that, too. I looked at KDEconnect. But in the end, I wanted to add some gaming capabilities if I added a PC to the TV. But it’s great to hear that it works well :)
Nice wallpaper. Do you mind to share?
It was called moss dragon and I saved it maybe 10 years ago. Unfortunately, I don’t know the author or the website anymore. I hope it’s ok to still share.
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