KDE Plasma 6.7 Beta Introduces Plasma Bigscreen Mode for HTPCs

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[–] 17 points 5 months ago (1 child)

I can't wait to use this as a smart TV launcher

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    That's a big part of why I wanted one. Sure I can just use a laptop or build a small PC (hardware prices today notwithstanding), but the form factor alone is enough of a motivator for me.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago*

    Definitely interested in this. Want to see if it has a good lock screen that works well with a gamepad. Install it on my regular desktop

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    plasma bigscreen has been around for a while tho. i have been using it on my Debian TV box for a few years now.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    Will I be able to install this on my Xbox One X now that they’ve hacked it?

    Turning that in to an underpowered steam box would be sweet.

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    [–] 88 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    Ohhhh it's finally coming!

    Looking forward to trying it.

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  • [–] 34 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    I'm super pumped to finally have something better than Nvidia Sheild or Kodi

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  • [–] 20 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Honestly, I want to like Kodi, but even this first screenshot looks much better than anything I've been able to muster together in Kodi.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Same here. Kodi's UI was nice back in the days when it was XBMC. These days we have different ideas on usability.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Controlling it with a controller is awful, I had to change a lot of settings and it still jumps to a different scene any time someone accidentally bumps the joystick when picking it up or forgets to use the dpad for 10s rewind

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  • [–] 31 points 5 months ago

    I've been waiting for Plasma Bigscreen for quite a while for my and eventually my family's living room entertainment system.

    Add a DVB receiver and you can just a normal, dumb screen and never have to deal with shitty "smart" TVs again.

    Right now? Only buying Android TV because it's the only OS whixh I can manipulate (using ADB).

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  • [–] 21 points 5 months ago (25 children)

    How do streaming services like Disney, prime, Netflix, and hbo run on these? Is it possible?

    I need something dead simple for my wife.

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  • [–] 25 points 5 months ago (12 children)

    Probably the same as on a Linux desktop now, the browser sites work fine but you won't get 4k or HDR.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (11 children)

    Worth it in my books. Might be my eyes going bad, but I can't notice much difference beyond 720p

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  • [+] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 29 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    With respect, if you cannot notice a difference between 720p and 4k on a 4k compatible screen, then you do indeed have something wrong with your eyes.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I sold TVs when 1080p was coming out and there were so many “your eyes can only see the difference between 720p and 1080p if the screen is X big or you’re X close to it” and it was baffling. How could people have such bad eyes? Then I hit 30, 40, and… fuckin HUGE DIFFERENCE STILL. A 16” screen 10m from me? 1080p is going to look FAR better than 720p, much less 4k.

    No shade to folks with poor eyesight, but tons of shade to anyone saying there not a difference when they can see it, to justify their purchasing choices (like huge amount of people arguing for 30FPS during the XBone/PS4 gen)

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    My 60" TV is so far away from the couch that my Steam Deck's screen in my hands is the same perceived size. Depending on what you're watching, the difference between 1080P and 4k isn't that noticeable at that distance. What really makes a difference is HDR. Also note that lower-res content is often way more compressed, which makes it much more noticeable.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago* (2 children)

    You bring up another great point: higher rez with shitty compression or artifacting looks wayyy shittier than lower rez with good compression!

    Quick edit: unfortunately for most any steaming service, you get shitty compression AND low rez through a browser D:

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I mean... is the situation much better through an app? I haven't noticed a difference, but I have very little experience comparing the two

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Resolution isn't actually important. Dots per inch is, but also it needs to be scaled by distance. Low DPI isn't noticeable if you're far away, but even high DPI is when you're close to it. It might be less that your eyes are going bad and more that you're sitting further away from your screen or your screen is really small.

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  • [–] 10 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Unsubscribe to all off them and sail the high seas

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I should also add that I live in a third would country so all the streaming services are dirt cheap here.

    I think YouTube premium is like $3 a month or something like that.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    If I pay for YouTube premium, Netflix, disney, amazon prime, HBO max, spotify. I have to spend around 70 euros a month. (4k content or family pack)

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    For all that, we are $30-$40 a month.

    My wife pays for most of them. I think I only pay the Disney and Spotify.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I just made a server, download 4k content on a pirate site. Spend around 5€ for my mullvad VPN. And we don't even need to go to the cinema anymore. Which is like 15€ per ticket at least. We do it sometimes for a date to get out of the house. But it just gets expensive very fast once you get candy and drinks.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    You could always install Waydroid TV and get the apps from Aurora Store or Google Play for full resolution

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Oh, that’s a great idea. It never occurred to me.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Here's a repo to get you started, though you'll need to either do some workaround in SteamOS to get it to stick since it is immutable (Steam Deck/Machine community has a couple ways of doing it), or use a regular game optimized distro like CachyOS: https://github.com/WayDroid-ATV/waydroid-androidtv-builds

    Make Android TV shortcuts for apps that don't normally work on Android, but have gamepad support: https://atvlauncher.trekgonewild.de/

    You could also just do regular Waydroid, but some apps won't give you the TV optimized version with gamepad/remote support, then you need to use something like this or Mantis: https://github.com/keymapperorg/KeyMapper

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  • [–] 18 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    FYI this won't be out until June.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Huh. I wonder if this is maybe related to the Steam Machine? It would be a good use case for it, and the timing makes sense. I know the Deck boots into Steam Big Picture at boot, but you can get to the desktop, and I think it's KDE. I've only used someone else's Deck for a short time, but I remember it working fine because it has a touch screen. Without that, you need something like this.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    I don't think so. It's been around for a while but was unmaintained for a bit so it wasn't compatible with Plasma 6. That's why it was removed from the Debian repositories. It's just been a case of someone who wanted to maintain it coming along. AFAIK it's mainly aimed at Smart TVs.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    It has to be. Can you imagine shipping a HTPC without a decent interface? And the fact that it is just a different mode within Plasma Desktop rather than a distinct shell means seemless switching like the steam client without having to log out then back in

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  • [–] 14 points 5 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Here's to all 100 of us Linux couch gamers who all happen to own a Logitech K400 Plus. If you know, you know.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I barely couch game but when I do, I use a controller.

    Mostly my Linux htpc is used for streaming but not doing a ton of that anymore. I started buying DVDs again.

    But nice to have the option for the two streaming services I do use or YouTube.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Over time my strategy flipped from HTPC being my old desktop builds to becoming the newest build in the house that I do everything fun on. Since my friends still visit for local multiplayer, I have a bunch of 8bitdo controllers and arcade sticks. I primarily use them too yep.

    Trackpad keyboard is great for general navigation/web browsing. The joke is there's very little competition in this form factor. Also have a cushioned wood lap desk with a proper keyboard+mouse. Mouse heavy gaming. Quake Brutalist Jam 3, Nova Roma, HMM: Olden Era, and Toxic Commando I brought out the lap desk for most recently.

    This is all Stremio's fault 😅.

    What was your motivation to start buying DVD again? I went all in on digital a decade back after being the guy who owned every major (and some flops) console dating back to the 1970's for so long. Pirate all in, software emulation all in. I bought a NAS. I hate subscriptions and minimise those. Never sold off vinyl or my movie collection however. Still buy vinyl but no new movie purchases in said decade.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Me and my girl are watching a bunch of different TV shows. Basically showing each other our favorites. While we were watching Dexter, it got removed from whatever platform it was on and moved to another one which meant we had to buy another service just to finish it.

    After that, and seeing all of the price hikes, I realized I'd rather do a one time payment for any shows I watch especially because at the current pricing, DVDs are cheaper overall. That and streaming services are trying to add value to themselves by doing original TV. Most of it is garbage that I'll never watch, so there isnt much value in streaming for me anymore.

    That sounds like a really cool setup for gaming. What games di you and your friends play mostly? My htpc is just a little used HP office PC. Far from cutting edge but great for my use case. I used to use a keyboard and mouse for navigation but I didn't like it. I settled on using an air mouse and keyboard combo. Its not perfect but it gets the job done.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    Basically showing each other our favorites.

    Very jealous lol.

    ...DVDs are cheaper overall. ...Most of it is garbage that I'll never watch, so there isnt much value in streaming for me anymore.

    When going the legal route, can't argue with that logic fair enough.

    ...What games do you and your friends play mostly?

    Mixed bag we're all variety gamers. Much like online gaming for us it's just an excuse to show up and talk. Lately it's been Sega Genesis emulation and getting through the harder USA version of Streets of Rage 3. A lot of shoot 'em up arcade titles via MAME. A ROM hack basically a combined version of all N64 Mario Party games into one. We were taking turns playing Death Stranding 2 in the winter. Xenogears before that, again with a hack this time just QoL features and a better English translation.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Oh my god it's happening. Everyone stay calm. Stay fucking calm!

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    i wonder if I'll be possible to flash this on my nvidia shield when it's out

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  • [–] 23 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    Reintroduces, really. Iirc it was originally made for plasma 5 and and was broken by changes in Plasma 6. This is "we fixed the stuff we broke".

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Yup, it disappeared from Debian repositories in 13/Trixie.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Annoyed at slow release processes since I want this but I also hate the risk of crapping up my system by adding a new source. It'll be a dog's age before I can get it on a stable version of Ubuntu, but I've had so much trouble installing big corpo programs I need on anything but Ubuntu stable that I'm afraid to leave it.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Hell yeah!

    Are there any distros yet that come with it? I have a pi I've been using as an htpc and I'm interested in switching

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago*

    We are planning to join the Plasma release schedule starting with Plasma 6.7 (in June), which will make it possible for distributions to ship it in their repositories.

    I’m imagining it will only be available in rolling release distros for a while.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    How useful is this in the grand scheme of things if the applications themselves don't have a 10ft UI? I guess you'd need to limit yourself and find apps specifically made to be shown on a TV.. within a repository that caters desktop apps. Blending TV's and desktops is hard...

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I have a Linux HTPC on Mint where I have the Pegasus frontend with Jellyfin, VacuumTube, and a bunch of games. The main usability issue is the need to exit each app differently to get back to Pegasus. There’s no notion of using a home button to go back to the home screen and pause the current process, which is what I’d be hoping to get with Bigscreen. Otherwise, Pegasus is fine for launching apps with a remote, and Jellyfin and VacuumTube work fine with a remote as well.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago*

    Jellyfin, VacuumTube, and a bunch of games.

    I use Kodi for all of this plus IPTV, etc. It has a customizable "home", menus, etc. that make it easy to navigate. You can also run audio/video in the background while navigating.

    It can be a pain to setup everything but I think it's worth it.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I use Kodi as my HTPC with a FLIRC remote.

    I rarely exit to desktop but, when I do, I often use a wireless keyboard.

    It's somewhat annoying having to switch between the two. I imagine this Bigscreen desktop might help.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    How’s HDMI-CEC support in Linux? I remember that being a sticking point last time I considered building an HTPC

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    How’s HDMI-CEC support in Linux?

    Pulled directly from KDE Plasma’s Bigscreen website.

    Multiple Input Methods

    Navigate with your TV remote via CEC, a game controller, a keyboard and mouse, or even your phone via KDE Connect.

    https://plasma-bigscreen.org/

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Doesn’t work. Not a Linux issue. No graphics card or motherboard maker connects the hardware correctly to support CEC on PCs. It’s an industry-wide practice.

    There is the pulse eight injector which together with software can inject CEC with a USB connection with the caveat it can’t turn your computer on and it’s a hacky and imperfect solution for tinkerers rather than production ready equipment. Also it’s only HDMI 2.0 not 2.1.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    A pulse 8 would actually be very good with this. You can turn the computer on with a USB remote and the pulse 8 would send a signal to turn in the TV. From that point on, everything else would be controlled with the USB remote talking directly to the computer.

    Also the website says CEC will work, so maybe they have a more elegant solution already

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I searched for what HDMI-CEC but it’s not very clear to me. Does it mean that, say, if I have an HTPC, and if I run Kodi, I can control it with a regular TV remote? Should this thing be on a TV too? Would appreciate someone with the supported devices to comment how it works and how you use it.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    It means that multiple devices which are connected to the same TV can all control each other.

    For example, say you have a streaming device (e.g. Amazon Fire Stick) and an audio receiver both hooked up to the same TV on different HDMI ports. With CEC, you could use the volume buttons on the streaming device’s remote to control the volume on the audio receiver. You could also use the power button on the TV remote to turn all three devices on/off at the same time.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Now how do I control this with a gamepad?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Last time I used it, it felt laggy to menu through.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    This plus a Flirc USB would be amazing. I'm going to give it a go.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

    Ok, but why would you run Plasma on a HTPC?

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Nice. Definitely something to check out when I build my next HTPC.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Well now I want an htpc even more!

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