this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2026
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What suggestions do you have for simple media players that techy people could recommend to their families? It seems like for the most part we're limited to Android-based devices or the Apple TV.
It's not there yet. But I'm hoping KDE plasma big screen continues to receive love. If it gets into mainstream distributions. It will likely be big. It's a much more smart TV like shell for the KDE desktop. All the familiarity of your Google TV, Apple tv, fire stick, Roku etc. But none of the advertisements or lockdown. With waydroid it should even be able to run most of your Android applications as well as all the native Linux and KDE applications. But again this is something to watch for. Not quite ready for deployment yet.
I'm just running Linux with an always on top Kodi on an N100 mini-PC.
Works fine with a wireless remote for the purpose of being a TV Box that I just have on my living room and use in the same way as I would a commercial TV box.
Granted, I also use that as a homeserver (its seriously overpowered to just be a TV Box) but that side of things I manage remotely via SSH.
You don't really need access to the full desktop to run Linux apps if you just want a TV Box.
True. But having the ability to do that on your own Hardware is still something desirable whether or not you choose to. Yeah I doubt I will pull up a terminal very often from the television LOL. But if I need or want to I still want it there. :-)
Well, in all fairness I still have a keyboard and mouse wired to that setup, though it's very rare that I use it.
I got a nice little keypad that has a television remote style interface on one side a little rubbery keypad on the underside and an accelerometer inside to use for Mouse input.
I used something like that for a while but I didn't really use the keypad side in practice and the quality of that remote was kinda crap so the most used buttons (normal remote ones on the front) quickly became unreliable. Also I don't find the airmouse all that convenient to use.
I replaced it with one of these plus I also have a perfectly normal keyboard and mouse connected to that mini-PC in case I need to directly use it (which is rare since even the homeserver stuff I normally do remotely from a normal Desktop PC via SSH).
This would be awesome!
It absolutely would be. I'm watching it with great interest. The thought of having a Raspberry Pi and old E-Waste business PC or a cheap n100 or 150 system at the television. Running Games movies everything. It's very attractive.
I was going to say, an old 1L ThinkCentre Tiny, Optiplex Micro, or HP Mini would fit the bill nicely. I already have one set up for retro gaming. It would be nice to get it set up as kore of an overall media center, with a remote-friendly interface. I know I can do that with Libre elec and Kodi but I’m not a fan. KDE is my desktop of choice so I’d love to see what they come up with. Plasma Mobile is solid so I would imagine it could be similar.
I have no idea what anyone in the following comments is talking about and I'm otherwise "techy". I couldn't imagine a non techy person dealing with any of these recommendations. They just want something to work out of the box without lots of obscure configurations and zero support. As soon as they have a problem they are stuck. They aren't going to search through tech websites and special interest groups. I think a lot of folks don't understand how alien any of this is for the vast majority of people.
tbh that's the same with smart TVs. you are on your own even there. maybe your friends can help but they don't have solutions memorized either, if someone is willing to help they'll need to go through the menus just the same as with the brands bought in the shop.
Build a media stick out of something like a pi seems like the only option? I wouldn't want to deal with that though and I'm not aware of anyone selling a plug-n-play ready options like that unfortunately.
I did that and I'm curious why you say you wouldn't want to deal with it?
If the setup matches my own personal setup, then I would. But I wouldn't want to have to deal with troubleshooting it if anything comes up down the road when ill have completely forgotten how I set it up in the first place.
Also, I know from experience that someone like my parents would opt to use the commercial options over something I set up for them.
Yeah a remote with 3-4 buttons and a d-pad is about the limit for many people.
Id possibly look at this guy here if you want mostly plug and play: https://osmc.tv/vero/ it might nit be perfect, but probably one of the least bad OOTB options.
I was just looking into this recently and CoreELEC came up. That or LibreELEC that run kodi. The hardware that was recommended would be a ugoos x4q
Depending on how maintenance-free this is once it's configured (because non-technical people are not going to mess with things), this actually looks like a pretty solid solution. Thank you!
It’s been years since I’ve used Kodi but I remember after it being set up it was pretty solid. I’m sure it’s been improved since then
An Onn box with protectivity launcher, all bloatware removed, and ReVanced apps is the simplest/cheapest way to go.
I just use a mini PC and use streaming services through the browser when I do use them.
Couple that with a air mouse/keyboard combo remote and its pretty good. Not perfect but good for non tech people too.
I would suggest using a PC with a Kodi or Jellyfin and the arr stack to automatically download all of your shows and movies.
Paid streaming services won't work because of DRM, so you need to host your own.
I have the hosted part taken care of but the other half of the issue is the media player side for people that are not technical at all. They basically need a device where they can open an app that just works and have a simple interface to navigate around and play media.
If the media is stored locally or on a network share on your LAN, then Kodi will work well for that. When you first instal it, tell it where you keep your files and enable auto scan on startup. After that, you just open it and browse your TV show or movie library.
If you want to stream the media away from home things get a bit more complicated.
All kinds of media player distros for raspberry pi