CatosTV turns a mini PC or an old desktop into a TV box you run with a remote. Android TV apps, your Jellyfin library and Linux apps sit together on one home screen.
Real screenshots from a 4K TV. Use ← → to flip through. Thumbnails of other people’s shows are blurred.
Remote first
Everything works with arrows, OK and Back. Home always gets you home, and holding OK opens options. Add a USB‑CEC adapter and the remote that came with your TV runs the whole thing over HDMI‑CEC.
Android TV apps
Set up Android TV 16 once from Settings, with Google Play or Aurora Store. It runs in a container on the same Linux kernel, so there’s no emulator window and no second launcher. Apps get a tile on Home, open full screen, and Back on an app’s first screen brings you home.
Game controllers go straight through to Android games. APKs install from a USB stick. Read the Android guide.
Store
Kodi, Plex HTPC, Stremio, VLC, Spotify, Moonlight, Steam in Big Picture, emulators. The Store sorts Flathub into Watch, Listen, Play and Stream, and installs and updates apps with the remote.
Our own Jellyfin client built for TV screens.
Play to the TV from DLNA apps, link the YouTube app, or open the phone remote page on the same Wi‑Fi and type with a PIN. KDE Connect works too.
CatosTV is a rolling release based on Arch Linux. Updates arrive in Settings with notes on what changed, and never start in the middle of a film.
No sign-in and no telemetry.
What you need
Installing
balenaEtcher, Ventoy or dd all work.
Choose Install CatosTV. If the screen stays dark, pick the safe graphics entry instead.
Pick a network, a disk and your time zone. It asks before it erases anything.
