So you’re using Hyprland WM… I’m assuming to have a minimalistic Window Manager… But you want an app launcher.

No offense, but FFS just use a DE at that point. You’re just creating a DE with extra steps. KDE is nice and fairly lightweight.

Yes

The GitHub repo of the maintainer shows that the project is archived and dead.

Does that offer any advantages over the kiosk mode functionality? Looks like that repo was abandoned in 2023 and marked as archived.

It’s a brand called Gimbi. It has a keyboard on the back and programmable IR buttons.

As long as your browser supports the DRM, it should stream 1080p and 4k fine. Chrome is best, unfortunately, specifically for Netflix.

It loads the web page in full screen kiosk mode in Chrome.

I run an HTPC that works fully with my AirMouse Remote I bought for it for ~$15USD. It uses Flex Launcher running on Debian.

Basically, I use it for Plex, some Netflix, retrogaming, and Steam.

I was in a similar boat to you were I looked at Plasma Big Screen, LibreElec, etc. Plasma BigScreen was too buggy or unmaintained. LibreElec is great if you want to play local stuff, but terrible for streaming things like Netflix. In the end I said “screw it. I’ll make my own”. Now it’s the center of my living room.

I’m not against AI. I’m against the hoards of privacy-disrespecting data collection, the fact that everybody is irresponsibility rushing to slap AI into everything even when it doesn’t make sense because line go up, and the fact nobody is taking the limitations of things like Large Language Models seriously.

The current AI craze is like the NFTs craze in a lot of ways, but more useful and not going to just disappear. In a year or three the crazed C-level idiots chasing the next magic dragon will settle down, the technology will settle into the places where it’s actually useful, and investors will stop throwing all the cash at any mention of AI with zero skepticism.

It’s not Luddite to be skeptical of the hot new craze. It’s prudent as long as you don’t let yourself slip into regressive thinking.

Debian ticks all of these boxes.

Stable release

Wayland or X Server

It’s Debian, so literally everything is built for it, except maybe some obscure arch packages

Has options for any DE you want

Steam can be installed via Flatpak

Only thing I’m not sure about is your air print stuff. I’m sure there is a package that a quick apt install would get, though.

It uses pamac/pacman for packages like Arch. I believe pamac has automatic updates, if turned on.

How, exactly, is Wayland a mess? It has a good legacy window compatibility layer and is solving a lot of problems X11 had. Seems perfectly alright to me.

I started with Plasma Big Screen, but the browser is awful and the app selection is problematic. I ended up just going full DIY with Chromium running kiosk mode full screen apps, Plex HTPC, Steam Big Picture, etc. tied together with Flex Launcher.

I considered this, but ended up going HTPC instead. The Shield is just too old and now they’re loading it up with more ads you can’t get rid of. Screw that.

Any Linux distro with Flex Launcher and an Air Mouse+Keyboard Remote.

This is what my HTPC looks like currently:

I recently switched from being a long time GNOME users over to KDE Neon. It has been a nearly flawless experience.

My biggest complaint so far is the lack of NFS support in Dolphin, which I use for my NAS. GNOME Files had native support for NFS. Now I have to manually mount from CLI and then it’ll show up in Dolphin (eventually I’ll setup fstab, but haven’t done it yet).

I feel like this list was designed to purposefully piss everyone off.

Also, Debian is the basis for the majority of popular distros out there. “Bad”, my ass.

Pretty much. We paid for the damn infrastructure. It should be OURS.