That's looks much better.
I tried the older version for my htpc and didn't like it.
I would love to see this keep improving.
Is this basically a DE? Could you run steam and full on gaming PC off this?
Baeically its a somewhat stripped down version of plasma ment to be used with a controller or remote, but it is only a DE, so applications that arent controller friendly are going to stay that way.
Setting steam to launch big picture by default tho would basically turn any powerful pc you have into a steam console (steam big picture) with an extra home screen (plasma bigscreen) that shows all your other applications
What does DE mean in this context?
It's a Linux concept. Basically, imagine you could have a Windows 11 PC with the Windows XP GUI or with the macOS GUI. In Linux, these kinds of different GUIs are just desktop environments, which you can install as you see fit.
Conversely, you can also have an OS without a desktop environment, which is basically what's used on Linux server PCs.
Desktop environment
It's an alternative shell for Plasma, so theoretically you should be able to do anything in it that you can do in Plasma.
On my Arch box it installed a minimal set of Plasma utilities to support it, which means my setup is still very limited (and I can't turn off screen lock!), but I haven't tried if it would change if offered a full Plasma install.
I can most certainly launch Steam, Kodi, Jellyfin etc.
Or is it a "mode" of KDE? Like can you use a distro of KDE and then put it into Bigscreen mode?
It's using plasma-nano session, which is a minimal Plasma session, and adding a launcher and settings app from what I can see.
You can run it in a regular window if you install the dependencies and use kde-builder to compile it and run. See the Dev docs at https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-bigscreen/
If you do decide to install all the kde-builder stuff, I'd suggest you use a distrobox container to make it easy to remove the many, many packages that it will install in order to set up the build environment
Does it have Stremio and an equivalent to YouTube ReVanced/SmartTubeNext? If so, I'm sold. I'm tired of the slow clunky interface on my Android-based TV. Paid nearly $2K for this fucker and they couldn't even be bothered to give it a CPU with more than 2 cores, nor more than 8GB of storage space. Like a cheap Chinese Android phone from 2014.
Glad to see it being picked back up. I tried it previously and I really didn't like it. It felt half baked. The new version looks like a substantial improvement. Now if only every streaming app didn't lock their services behind DRM and mobile apps.
Couldn't you get around this by making the "apps" in bigscreen be browser shortcuts to their respective streaming website?
Many streaming service websites limit browser streaming to 720p.
Or just outright don't allow it at all on Linux as if that does anything whatsoever.
Really? I'm on a Linux desktop and I had not noticed. Though I steam from Netflix on it very very rarely.
With Netflix in a browser, you can bring up your streaming stats in the browser window as you're watching something by pressing Ctrl + Shift+ Alt + D. It'll give you several bits of information as an overlay, including what resolution the video is playing at. Next time you stream from them, give it a shot and see if you get anything above 720p. I know I never have and if you search online, you'll find others with the same experience. In fact, I think Netflix might actually have this on a FAQ page somewhere...
Found it! https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081
Scroll down to the OS selection and you can see what resolutions are supported by which browsers on Linux. Turns out Opera will give you 1080p for some reason, but the rest are capped at 720p.
That only would launch them and probably won’t support remotes properly.
As others have mentioned, the websites tend to be limited both by resolution and functionality.
My TV supports CEC(most do these days) which will pass the remote input onto the devices connected to it, like a computer. Which means with Plasma Big Picture I can navigate with my remote, and any app that supports navigation with simple arrow key input would work great.
Unfortunately, the streaming websites, last time I tried, absolutely suck at that and assume you are navigating with a mouse.
Let's goooo!
(And let's support!!)
Can't wait to switch to Desktop Mode on my SteamDeck to open Plasma BigScreen.
Nice! The revival is further along than I thought. Can't wait to put it on my Steam Deck. And maybe my desktop PC will move into the living room in the near future. Would be the perfect timing.
Looks promising. Does remote controllers work with it?
I expect so.
KDE Connect also works great as a remote control for many things, presumably including this.
I'm wondering what I've done wrong with KDE Connect as I could never get it working on any device across 3 different smartphones
Sadly the distributions I tried did not open the required port(s) on the built-in firewall (Bazzite and CachyOS, for two).
I would suggest to disable any firewall and check if you can pair.
HDMI-CEC seems to be currently unsupported. So you won't be able to use your TV's remote yet.
The article actually stated that the featured is untested.
Controller support exists, but getting TV remotes to work over HDMI CEC is still untested.
now, that sounds more interesting than just "unsupported"!
Does it support Dolby Vision?
Because if not, I'm not sure how it's going to compete with Android TV devices.
mpv supports Dolby vision (along with the Jellyfin clients that depend on it), but if you mean with streaming services, that's unlikely to happen due to DRM.
Looks nice! I'm getting it set up on an old Pi right now for a new media center in my basement.
Nice
Wow this looks to be really promising!! I would LOVE to get rid of my current Nvidia sheild Android TV setup, as that contain the mast part of Google I'm forced to use.
I tried it like a year ago, and there were really a lot of things I dislike. Let's see how it goes. Would be nice, because I still don't have a good solution for this.
HALLELUJAH!!! I was wondering what was going on with this project. I have so many old laptops waiting around just to be converted for Plasma Bigscreen so I can get rid of my android TV boxes that run like garbage
For real. My nvidia shield (the tube version), has been struggling with 4k HDR playback lately. It needs frequent reboots. I later come to learn that the device is 32 bit, yet it's one of the most competitive devices in the space? Silly.
Fun horror story I learned recently, so are many, many, many of the things that share their internals, commonly, tablets. good luck figuring out whether this specific 4gb ram tablet has 64 bit, aka the majority of em either dont. Some are even using 64 bit processor with 32bit android build, so even if the processor cna handle it, no 64bit applications for you
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