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.
Wayland is the future, but this is one of the things where X11 is like meant for it.
I would still go with Wayland. Use a compositor that just displays fullscreen.
Note that MPV needs XWayland, players like Celluloid/Haruna are Wayland native.
No idea about the rest though.
Doesn’t MPV run natively on Wayland?
Other than his choice of video player not supporting Wayland yet, why is this perfect for X11?
If he is only going to run one app, he can use Cage.
https://github.com/cage-kiosk/cage