I have been rather unhappy with my smart TV’s functionality as I feel it isn’t smart for me but smart for the manufacturers. I just can’t use it how I want to. I would love to overwrite the existing OS from Android to Linux. I’ve recently converted from Windows and loving Mint.
I haven’t read too much regarding Linux smart tvs as my searches mostly come up with raspberry Pi and overwriting an Android box. I don’t want to connect anything and just want my tv to boot up in Linux when it’s turned on, and get some of my apps going. Is there a way to do this?
For reference I have a Sony Bravia with Android installed on it.
There are folks form KDE who are trying to implement the Plasma Bigscreen solution: https://plasma-bigscreen.org/. Seems promising to me :)
Though, I’d still recommend to use an external device to avoid breaking the TV OS up ;)
That does sound promising. I hope they get it up and running!
It was abandoned for awhile but a few months back someone has taken up working on it and made a bunch of headway. Looks significantly better than the screenshots on that website.
That said, I think the UI of choice for Linux machines is going to be Steam Big Picture Mode. I’ve been using it as my SmartTV for awhile now and I really can’t think of anything else I’d want. The excellent controller support just makes it untouchable.
How did you get it running? I’ve tried compiling it on a fresh Arch and fresh Ubuntu 22.04 install and the compiler breaks halfway through.
I only spent about 10 or so minutes each time trying to fix it and moved on.
I just use bazzite. Baked in, super easy.
Agree with op- I’ve never used it but man, big picture mode is just amazing. Simple to use and does everything I need.
Oh really? I have Bazzite on my TV laptop. Perfect way to try it. Thanks!
As the other person said, use the version of Bazzite that defaults to the SteamUI (it’s what I use on my media center). I think it’s called Bazzite-Deck
But what are you trying to compile? You just need Steam, gamescope, and pass it some parameters to boot directly to BPM: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_.28with_a_Display_Manager.29
See Section 5.6
The fact that they mention Mycroft AI (which stopped being properly developed over 2 years ago) on their homepage is a little worrying 😬 They do mention the situation in their FAQs, though.
There is still active development: https://espi.dev/posts/2025/07/plasma-bigscreen/
Very nice, glad to see it! I suppose actually doing dev work is more important than updating the website 😅
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They specifically say on their FAQs page that they’re not going to work with OVOS, sadly.
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I tried it out a while back it looks promising but long from usable yet really. But maybe……