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I set up a Linux pc to replace my smart TV and add some gaming capabilites. It took some time but I learned quite a lot (Thanks to Debian and Arch wikis). And I haven't missed any TV functionality.

The launcher is flex-launcher on a labwc environment/compositor on a Debian stable distro. (For testing and easy setup, I also did it on Ubuntu Gnome but I don't need a full DE in the background that I don't use. But it's adaptable to other distros and DEs.)

It's now fully usable with a gamepad including turning the TV on and off, so I have also fully replaced the TV remote.

I hope some people may find it interesting. It was also quite a lot of fun, actually.

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[-] joulethief@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 3 days ago

Neat!! How did you manage to get the gamepad functionality working?

[-] kegar@programming.dev 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It's simply connected by bluetooth or by dongle and Debian managed to do everything. Flex-launcher also supports it by default. I added some more key-combinations using input remapper such as closing programs, returning to launcher, changing volume.

I actually had some problems with input remapper on Debian and had to install the latest release (the one from the repository didn't work).

[-] joulethief@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago

I should have looked at the projects page first, it even lists gamepad support as one of its main features. Intuitively expected it to be a separate program because I've never seen it supported natively before!

this post was submitted on 13 May 2026
154 points (100.0% liked)

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