Its all good. I use to run Kodi on a HTPC that I built with openelec and it was pretty stable. I am not sure if it is available anymore (openelec.tv) it was a linux distro. I switched to NVidia shield due to the accessibility to Netflix and Amazon and I have not looked back. Oh an its cheaper than a HTPC I think... Source: over 2 years ago

I know there are various customized distros for the RasPi, such as OpenElec, but as a staunch Linux and FLOSS advocate I still don't think that's what most people are searching for when they look for a streaming device these days. Source: about 3 years ago

You could get a SFF PC like the other reply mentioned, and install something like Plasma Bigscreen[1] on it. [1](https://plasma-bigscreen.org/). - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago

Root privileges are just that. It's not a no no. Android is Linux and hopefully one day some OS will be released for mobile devices based off Linux, have sudo and su, have a package manager, bash, init (not systemd), Grub2, various Linux kernels available etc. There are projects like Manjaro ARM, PostmarketOS. But they're just not ready yet. Although, a bit off topic here, I apologize, this project is pretty rad... Source: about 1 year ago

There's plasma bigscreen you can try for launching apps https://plasma-bigscreen.org/. Source: about 1 year ago

Plasma Bigscreen also looks alright but it's still early on, I plan to try it out eventually so I'll give open-gamepad-ui a try as well when I do. Source: about 1 year ago

There is https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ being worked on which you could theoretically run with steam big picture mode when it's done. Source: over 1 year ago