Ask Lemmy

My parents and I use Bazzite. I know it’s mainly used for gaming, but since you can add non Steam programs just fine, it works great for a media PC. You can configure Jellyfin to style itself for TV and work with keyboard/controller. There’s also a YouTube TV app (I forget what it’s called, but it’s on Flathub).

I use the windows gyro remote from Pepper Jobs, and it works great. The PC sees it as a keyboard.

You might be able to install Android x86 on this, and use it however you would use a typical Android box. Another option is libreelec.

If I were you, I would install Nobara or Bazzite, the HTPC version. Which can boot directly into Steam Big Picture. You can install Jellyfin client, add the TV version to steam and you can launch it with steam big picture mode, and Jellyfin's Linux version of TV mode supports gamepad navigation. For Android apps you can install Waydroid and use whatever android app you need, like SmartTube. It might be a bit time consuming to set up, but it will be way more versatile, as you can easily just boot to desktop mode and do other things as well. Plus, you can play games. Emulated games would run great on this device, you can use something like emudeck or retroarch.

I've been using casaOS and it worked kinda fine. not sure if the best, but it worked. https://youtu.be/qn192xxjmUA

https://libreelec.tv/

I have a similar Mini PC as an HTPC. I have Debian 13 installed as the base OS. For something like this I want a rock solid stable base with long support. Doesnt get much better than Debian in that regard. KODI, Chromium, Firefox, and Moonlight installed through Flatpak. Works great.

Maybe just Debian (for reliability) set to autostart Kodi? (to keep it non-nerd friendly)

When I hear "HTPC" I kinda assume you don't want a full fat desktop, at least you don't want it right at boot, but a TV-specific interface, something that's easy to use at 60 inches and 10 feet away.

I don't know about hottest, but on my little HTPC I'm running NixOS with KDE (mainly for KDE Connect, but it's nice to have a DE of some sort when things crash/break).

I set up flex launcher to auto start and added menu options for Kodi, Firefox, and Steam.

I used to run LibreElec. It was mostly fine, but the Kodi YouTube plugin breaks just often enough that I wanted to have a web browser as backup. Also, I eventually wanted to play/stream games to it.

How much did you pay?

I'm running raspberry pi is on mine but that is just to get pi soexific features.

I would not recommend libreelec because Firefox is still the most reliable way to watch yt without ads.

I'm using NixOS with KDE for HTPC, though I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you're eager to learn Nix.

The upshot is that it's super stable, and everything is declared and versioned in the git repo, including my lirc device codes and node-red automation flow for lirc and mqtt. (The HTPC shows up as a mqtt switch in home assistant for turning on and off, and the HTPC turns on or off the TV and amplifier through IR as the PC turns on or off)

I mostly use Firefox and various streaming sites for video, and Spotify desktop client for music. A gyro mouse/keyboard is the main input device, plus wireless Xbox360 controllers for streaming games with Moonlight (from Flathub)

I have an Intel NUC box and run Lubuntu on it with Kodi auto-starting on boot. It works well.

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Personally: OpenSUSE Leap with KDE

I did the same project about a year ago. I started with LibreElec, but there were a lot of weird bugs and quirks, and I was at the point where it was crashing 3 or 4 times a day. Whenever I went to get help on their forums it seemed like every thread of theirs was closed with no resolution due to piracy in the logs.

After that I installed PopOS and use Kodi that way and its been really solid.