With the recent GN video I’d been wondering about turning an old mini PC from eBay into a little Linux TV box for streaming. I’d need access to Android apps (I guess through Waydroid).
After a brief look, it seems that the two options are some form of LibreElec system running Kodi or Arch running Plasma Big Screen. Any thoughts / advice? And if I went for Big Screen, does anyone know of any distros that ship with it or will I have to spin it up myself on Arch?
I have two instances running debian on a lenovo think-something-or-other mini pc and a no name mini pc. Both are set for auto-login, and both fire up plex-htpc by default. I use a $10 remote I got off amazon that is “normal” on one side, with qwerty on the back. It also has a button you press to enable/disable a mouse cursor that you tip the remote around to control. Works well enough, and an old wireless mouse/keyboard stays tucked away if I ever need to do any real work on the system.
There were some annoying audio issues with Debian I fixed by nuking/reinstalling, but other than that it works pretty well as long as you know/are willing to learn how to write some scripts to auto-start some things. Plex-HTPC is 95% of what I use, the other 5% is using the browser to launch an owncast page that I stream… my bird-feeder… to for friends and family when they can’t access… my bird-feeder… in their market. It’s worth mentioning plex has DVR options if you’re willing to go that route.
Tl;Dr: Base regular setup of your choice as others are recommending, $10 remote off amazon, some scripting for start-up and some shortcuts on the desktop. I do recommend paying a bit more for a remote where the keyboard is backlit.