So for the past little while I’ve had a Pi 4 hooked up to my TV as a Kodi box running OSMC, which has been okay I guess. Having recently built a new PC, my old Ryzen 3600/GTX-1080 box is freed up, so I’m thinking of replacing that Pi with something that can also run Steam.

I’m completely at a loss for what system to run for a living room couch/TV experience. Kodi…could be better, OSMC doesn’t have a desktop and won’t launch just a normal web browser, it uses Kodi as its only UI and it’s just not fully good enough.

I’m also not sure if Steam Big Picture Mode is capable of being a media center. Like, can it play movies from there? My experience with Steam’s Big Picture Mode is it runs like microwaved shit anyway, feels as responsive as the average dogwood.

I want to be able to get to my collection of movies on my NAS, play Steam games, and do some web browser tasks like watch Youtube and that kind of thing. I just don’t do the streaming services, I don’t need Huflix or NetMax or whatever.

  • SoulKaribou@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 hours ago

    I have debian stable with xfce on a 2014 laptop. Increasing the fonts size and using KDE connect for remote on the phone to control the whole thing. Works smoothly for video and internet, just what I need.

    It’s tedious when you need to run terminal commands so I have an SSH server running there too.

    For gaming maybe you want to consider moonlight utility, to stream steam games from your gaming PC to your TV PC. It’s decent for most games but forget competitive shooters.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      2·
      3 hours ago

      I’ve tried out Steam Link on my Pi 4 in OSMC. It’s bad. Couldn’t pipe sound from my desktop PC to the Pi, so I’d have to either use my bluetooth headset on my desktop…being unaware of that software’s existence improves the lives of millions of Americans every day.