Yes I know about kodi but I have a few issues with that for one it has a pretty outdated ui but this is not a deal breaker for me but it also doesn’t allow the opening of other applications like Netflix or jellyfin etc, you have to install a compatible plugin.
Are there any gnu/Linux desktop environments that are optimised for a home theatre time situation to be used with a remote or game controller? At the moment I will probably just use gnome or kde but it doesn’t work well at all with remote or game controller.
MythTV - as others have already mentioned. It’s designed to work with the 10’ interface
Even records TV programs (presuming you have tuner hardware of course) - which I don’t think the others can do?
We don’t stream Netflix, but we do watch other various streams (ie BBC iPlayer), yoochoob, etc - all works fine, inc… video files from various sources, and music…
We use it with a Logitech K400 wireless keyboard and it works great for us.
I have played with a more traditional looking TV wand remote in the past, but you still need a keyboard to type in program websites, names, etc. so the K400 became our defacto remote.
MythTV used to come with Ubuntu as Mythbuntu back in the day, but most of the pre-installed distros have fallen away, so you’d need to pick a distro and install it yourself.
It’s a very mature application, so you won’t need to keep updating every time you want to watch anything.