Man I just got a mini-itx case and use a full-blown windows desktop next to my TV. Bought a "fly-mouse" (wireless mouse that works with gyroscope), set screen DPI to 200%.
One thing I didn't expect is that my family ends up using the TV quite a lot for planning stuff, like doing google sheets, planning trips on google maps, booking planes/restaurants/concerts/etc. We have a small normal wireless mouse and keyboard for such occasions.
No regrets, open platform > closed junk. Can also play steam games on TV. Can't wait until Steam OS works well on desktop so I can ditch windows too. If you only care about media and not gaming you can get a case small enough that can fit hidden away in a cabinet.
Bazitte is solid. Added PWA/electron wrappers for any web apps I frequently use (netflix/youtube/etc.) and added them as non-steam-games to my library. Have a steam controller and it is about as easy to use as any streaming stick.
Yup! And if you are a little more technically inclined, combine it with nix home-manager/flakes/etc. and you have an entirely declarative, immutable, reproducable setup that largely works ootb and is easy to deploy.
Nvidia has been doing some work with open source drivers lately so hopefully support does improve.
One thing I didn't expect is that my family ends up using the TV quite a lot for planning stuff, like doing google sheets, planning trips on google maps, booking planes/restaurants/concerts/etc. We have a small normal wireless mouse and keyboard for such occasions.
No regrets, open platform > closed junk. Can also play steam games on TV. Can't wait until Steam OS works well on desktop so I can ditch windows too. If you only care about media and not gaming you can get a case small enough that can fit hidden away in a cabinet.