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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by crankyrebel@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/kde@lemmy.kde.social

How many of you knew about this project?

Info

Plasma Bigscreen is a Plasma-based shell (desktop environment) for TVs and other large displays. It is designed to be used with arrow navigation using remotes or controllers.

Links

Plasma Bigscreen Website

Diving into Plasma Bigscreen

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[-] Ulrich@feddit.org -4 points 6 days ago

I don't know why they make this. Video streaming services don't support Linux.

[-] bradhd@programming.dev 2 points 5 days ago

I've used Plasma Bigscreen a bit, so I have some thoughts on this.

First, if you don't care about 4K streaming, you can have a perfectly good experience using commercial streaming services through a browser (on x64, at least). I set up Firefox to open fullscreen by default, then created a bunch of .desktop files as shortcuts to each streaming service I used, all opening in their own separate tab containers. That allowed my non-technical partner to open (for example) the Netflix "app" by clicking the desktop icon, which opens to the Netflix homepage full-screen, logged in and ready to go. The few times I've had to use Netflix via a smart TV or Android native app, it has been a worse experience than my in-browser bodge job - same has gone for Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and even Spotify. What Plasma Bigscreen brings to the table is laying out those desktop shortcuts in a way more familiar to smart TV users - you can create categories so all the streaming shortcuts show up in the same row together, and customise their icons & backgrounds. I don't really need it for myself, but when anyone else tries to use my TV, the familiar structure of the interface makes it easier. It's a small thing, but it's nice.

Second, you can do a lot more things than just stream video when you have a computer hooked up to a TV. Games are an obvious choice since you can use a controller to navigate Bigscreen, then jump straight into a game. Steam (especially in big picture mode) is the obvious one, but I have also found that Retroarch is seamless under Plasma Bigscreen, and with a knockoff air mouse remote you can have a good time even with games found in distro repos like Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection, or the Space Cadet Pinball demo. Browser games are similary straightforward, and you can have direct shortcuts to them using the same trick I described for the streaming services.

The last thing I want to point out is that Bigscreen is just another desktop environment - you can install it alongside regular old Plasma (or GNOME, or whatever) and switch between them by logging out and selecting the one you want. Having a computer that's hooked up to a large display and can give you a choice of interfaces suited to both TV and desktop use is more powerful than either option alone.

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 5 days ago

you can have a perfectly good experience using commercial streaming services through a browser (on x64, at least)

I disagree. Even if it was "perfectly good" as you say, there is still no remote-centric interface, which is what this project purports to provide: "It is designed to be used with arrow navigation using remotes or controllers".

you can do a lot more things than just stream video when you have a computer hooked up to a TV. Games are an obvious choice

TV devices exist for a reason. The reason being they are extremely energy efficient. Consuming <10 watts, while your 5090 gaming PC will be using 50+ watts the whole time.

Further, PCs don't support turning on with a remote/controller or HDMI-CEC (turning on the TV when powered on).

I'm certainly not arguing against its' existence but there are too many problems with this usecase that it cannot solve for a variety of reasons outside of its' control and it would be a disservice to advertise this software without also making users aware of it's many shortcomings.

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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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