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.
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.
CEC works fine with kodi on my raspberry pi (kodi on top of RPiOS, I did not try libreElec) plugged to an old-ish TV, and it’s really nice to have. The Pi puts the TV into standby and wakes it up, and I can control Kodi with the TV’s remote
Ah CEC yes…I’m confusing my TLAs. I should probably do some actual research.