Can’t we just have small Linux boxes with Plasma Bigscreen or something with cec support setup so the tv remote still works already :sob:
I just bought a Dell Optiplex 990 for 50 bucks on eBay. I lucked out in that the listing came with 8 GB of RAM. Just threw in a previous SSD, loaded Fedora Kinoite, and am currently playing with Podman/Docker Compose for an Arr stack. By next week, I should be able to move it from the corner where the router is, and then finally deliver on the promise that I made my girlfriend back in February, when I bought the HDMI projector and a speaker set.*
That said, I’m all for your idea, especially if it comes with an IR receiver, too.
If I get another Optiplex (that one for homelabbing), I’ll look into COSA and Butane/Ignition files more seriously. That’s a very solvable issue, after all.
* We had to move since then and I cannot find the front right speaker, for some reason. The company, whose name looks like the antagonist of FF8, doesn’t seem to sell replacement speakers, either.
Projectivity is another great option, especially if you want a few more options without anything you don’t want.
I also use Projectivity on my NVIDIA shield. No ads, no recommendations, just the apps I want. Everyday I’m glad I installed it.
I’d love a stick that has Hoopla support, but of course that’s going to be hard to come by because Big Entertainment doesn’t make billions of dollars off of it.
Roku, Android TV (ONN), Apple TV, etc. all have Hoopla support. The app doesn’t even have a way to browse titles, but if you know what you want to watch their app works.
If any apps, preferably open source, could do a search of services to see if one has “American Beauty” (or whatever) streaming for free AND launches the app directly I’d have no need for my stock launcher.
Somebody once tried to sell a box that would cancel all your streaming services and only fire the account back up for a month at a time when you wanted to stream something. It was a phenomenal idea with a genuine problem worth solving, completely torpedoed by the fact of the box costing $400 up front and I think requiring its own subscription.
