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"10 foot UI" for Linux? (dubvee.org)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/linux

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Putting together a new Linux HTPC build and looking for a 10ft UI WM/DE to use with it. Essentially, it would be a launcher for a few PWAs (Emby, Netflix, etc) as well as Steam and maybe some emulators. Navigation would likely be a wireless keyboard and, if absolutely necessary, mouse (goal is to get a bluetooth remote working and use that, but that's the next phase).

I haven't used Kodi since it was still Xbox Media Center (running on an actual Xbox lol), but would it be a good choice? I used it forever ago as the dashboard for my modded Xbox, and it was great. However, for this, I'd rather not run Kodi, if possible, since Emby already covers those use-cases.

If there's no "dedicated" one, any recommendations for which regular DE might be best modifiable/extendable to work for that purpose?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

KDE has Plasma BigScreen. It's a little buggy but mostly world alright and automatically supports HDMI CEC to keyboard conversion so you can navigate most apps.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I've used Plasma off and on for years, and every time I just regretted it. Can't point to one particular issue that ruined it, it was just a lot of little annoyances over a long period of time (mostly with multi-monitor setup and the panels glitching out all the time). So "BugScreen" sounds about right, lol.

That said, this would be more of an "appliance" configuration so I may give it a shot and keep Kodi as a fallback.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Plasma 6 got a ton better. Like remarkably.

Still some bugs though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

BigScreen is also basically no longer in development, IIRC.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks. (hands you two slips of gold-pressed latinum). I haven't had a chance to look into that yet (been playing around with Kodi and the Emby add-on), so you may have saved me some time/research effort.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I thought Bigscreen was abandoned?