None of the x11 sessions in any DE were as smooth video output-wise as the Wayland sessions I tried, especially with multiple monitors, they always had various problems and stutter.

That is why I switched to Wayland in the end.

HDMI-CEC out of the box? Does it not lose focus when you turn off/on the TV so keyboard/remote navigation becomes impossible?

1. They have an experimental Wayland session already. It mostly works except for some pretty important stuff…I also haven’t seen development on it for a long while.
2. I think this is almost a 100% no.
3. I tried to implement that myself. Making them shorter than the screen is easy. Making them appear above the edge of the screen is hard, but not impossible - the code is in JavaScript and the logic is kind of disjoint across multiple files and stuff depends on panels being at the edge of the screen - I didn’t do it in the end because it was too much effort for something I didn’t want that much.

I had lots of problems with the previous version when turning the TV off/on while it’s running, like losing keyboard access (no focus) until you use the mouse at least once and it updating the display settings every time. Hope it’s getting better now.

TBH the keyboard focus issue is happening on most Login Managers and DEs, so it’s not really their fault. I will try it out some time, until then I keep using my SteamOS install.

Depending on your TV it might not be enough. I’ve set it up, but my TV decides my PC doesn’t have CEC because it only starts responding after boot, not immediately.

I tested chatgpt, it needed some nagging but it could do it. Needed the size, blank and white keywords.

Obviously a lot harder than it should be, but not impossible.

I just insert the Tragedy of systemd video as my usual response to these threads.