I want to create a minimal install for mpv playback through jellyfin-mpv-shim and macast. this is going to be a base for a FOSS media sink akin to a Chromecast. you attach it to your TV and it plays whatever you send it, like movies from your jellyfin server and youtube/vimeo/piped/etc videos. otherwise, there’s no interaction with it, it doesn’t handle input (remotes, mice, keyboards, etc.), it’s controlled via apps (jellyfin android and allcast).
I’ve already made a proof-of-concept device running debian 12 with Plasma and it (mostly) works. now I’d like to trim the fat and install only what’s absolutely necessary as I currently only have a 2006 macbook with busted screen and GMA950 with a mechanical HD. I’m gonna go with LAN only so I don’t have to dick around with broadcom WLAN.
what do I need in terms of DEs and/OR WMs? do I need those at all? I seem to remember that I could run firefox in kiosk mode without anything else but X11, could I run mpv like that? or possibly wayland? what would be the absolute minimum package-wise to achieve this?
to reiterate, it’s only going to display full-screen mpv when there’s video to play, no menus, navigation, nada. possibly some slideshow-while-idle thingy in the future if it doesn’t add too much in terms of software needed, but not right now.
I don’t have any experience with your exact question.
But I would look into xinit and try if you can start just mpv.
If this doesn’t work look for a slim WM and configer it that the applications are displayed in fullscreen and launch mpv after the WM.
Probably any of the tiling window managers should work: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Window_manager
yeah, that’s the main question - do I need a window manager, when I all want is just full screen?
I’ve found something called mpv-kiosk, but that’s a snap and that monstrosity is the opposite of what I need.
I also found this, It’s for a RaspberryPi but surely can be adapted:
https://gist.github.com/seffs/2395ca640d6d8d8228a19a9995418211
You shouldn’t need a window manager, you should be able to pass a tell mpv to just run full screen.
Alternativly, if you’re up for a bit more work, it looks like you can get mpv to run in tge framebuffer and so not need ecen X11. It might take recompiling a few packages, I’m not sure whether the options are built by default now, but you could have a look at this thread fir example: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=176072
the fb route would be awesome, I’m adding this to my research list. would video playback be accelerated in this case?
I believe so, but that’s definitely something you’d need to check yourself.
You can look at the source of the snap and check what it does