I literally just finished doing this over the weekend. I went with fedora since I find it more stable and easier to use than the other distros plasma bigscreen works on. There have been a few bugs when using a controller but other than that it works great! I highly recommend it.
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2026
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haven't used fedora before, but it shouldn't be that hard lowkey
also isn't bazzite based on fedora? is it better in any way?
It's not a bad set up at all. There are some additional codecs you will want to get if you have an Nvidia GPU, but there are plenty of guides on that.
Bazzite is an atomic distro with a focus on gaming and based on fedora silverblue. I'm currently running it on my main gaming rig and it's very nice. It is more complete out of the box than fedora but installing something like bigscreen will probably be more difficult. Although, I bet it's possible. I haven't tried to figure it out though.
ah alright thanks
OSMC: https://osmc.tv/
They specifically asked for Plasma Bigscreen, probably as it can run normal desktop applications (it's a different question whether you should do that).
Whoops, I thought they just meant a big plasma screen lmao
Still a cool project though, ive never heard of it so thanks for sharing
Bookmarking this as a Chromecast alternative though :)
TIL! Thanks for sharing!
My suggestion would be KDE Neon or Fedora KDE, since both are straightforward and have official Plasma Bigscreen packages
I don't think atomic distros like Bazzite are a good fit for something like this since Plasma Bigscreen does not appear to have an official flatpak. It can be done but there are some drawbacks.
If you go with one of my suggestions, you will want to install multimedia codecs that do not come with the OS by default.
Check LibreElec, if it ticks all your boxes, it's probably the best (simplest) choice.
You can go much more general purpose, but if you don't need general purpose then all that general purpose capability amounts to (intentional or accidental) attack surface you don't need.
There's a list right on the website: https://plasma-bigscreen.org/get/
Since Plasma bigscreen is part of KDE, you probably want to start with a KDE desktop environment. So just get Fedora Kinoite (performs "atomic updates" which are a little faster and more reliable) or Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop (traditional packages which maybe have a higher chance to break, a little more annoying to update I think).
To install plasma-bigscreen on Kinoite, you run rpm-ostree install plasma-bigscreen and then reboot the computer.
Unless you are just trying to use up hardware you already have laying around, do not do this. The experience is extremely suboptimal and much more expensive than just buying a better streaming box.
If you have not spent money yet there is still time to avoid this mistake.
privacy alone is a good enough reason to get rid of a chromecast
Oh I agree, chromecasts and any android streaming box are a hard no. It’s just really important to recognize that replacing one with a mini pc is going to be much more expensive than just using a better streaming box.
So what IS a better streaming box if Chromecast and Android are out? IIRC Roku is enshittifying and Apple TV is great, but it's even more proprietary and locked down than an Android box. Shield is also Android I think?
I use appletv. It’s the best available option I’m aware of and certainly the best one in the ~$100 price range.
I'll agree that it's a good device, but this being the Linux community, I suspect most people would prefer something running open source software.
Also apparently these days it's like 250€, 320€ with ethernet and extra storage. No longer feels like a good deal to me, I had one when it was ~170€ with ethernet.
The second gen ones are still incredibly cheap for what you get and will most likely have a long support window (they’re still pushing updates for the old hd models from nine years ago).
As far as being open source, I have done diy linux streaming or time shifting boxes for twenty years before switching to the appletv and the fact that it can connect up to a smb, ntfs or jellyfin is enough for me.
Just trying to save our illustrious op some money, time and heartache.
It's usually a worse streaming box.... WAY worse. Lol
I should know since I tried it twice. First w mythbuntu circa 2004 and again w Kodi over a decade later and they both sucked compared to the $20 Chromecast I got for Xmas. Lmao