KDE Plasma Bigscreen on a Raspberry Pi 5

The Raspberry Pi 5 does a pretty good job of streaming 1080p video. I had been running KDE Plasma Bigscreen on a Raspberry Pi 4, it worked pretty well, but depending on the streaming service, 1080 video would either stagger or choke. I was quite happy just watching my streams at 720, but with the Pi 5 handling 1080 resolution streaming pretty well under the Raspberry Pi OS, and a new version of Bigscreen in the works for Plasma 6, I thought it was time to upgrade.

This is exactly the kind of content that goes on my other website, but there's a reason it's here instead, and that reason might disappoint you. I tried a few times to compile the new Bigscreen software with KDE Builder, and when I got stuck, searching for solutions to certain issues often returned the advice "I gave up with Debian and just went back to [Arch/Fedora/OpenSuse]". The guy who originally began the undergoing rejuvenation efforts for Bigscreen got it working on a Pi 5, but with Postmarket OS. It's worth noting at this point, Bigscreen is not available in the Debian 13 Trixie repositories.

For a few reasons, I am too heavily invested in Raspberry Pi's variant of Debian. The first being that it has the best streaming performance of all the operating system's currently available for the Raspberry Pi (at least according to the YouTubers who can be bothered to actually sit and test out each one in sequence). The second being that I use an Argon V3 case with IR remote so I can turn the thing on and off from my couch without having to get up - TV is suppose to be a passive activity.

With everything as it currently is, I see three ways to get Plasma Bigscreen running on a Raspberry Pi 5:

1. Use an alternative OS (I have already ruled this out for my own use case)
2. Use Debian 13 Trixie, and add the Bookworm repositories
3. Use Debian 12 Bookworm

Adding the Bookworm repositories to a Trixie installation is certainly a plausible solution. You would end up with KDE Plasma being installed from the Trixie repo, so Plasma 6, with a 5 Bigscreen package out of the Bookworm repo. Despite some possible QT clash, this should, in theory, work fine. Before I set up my Raspberry Pi 4 Bigscreen installation, I was using a Small Form Factor Dell Optiplex, with an Arch based distribution, and this is exactly the pairing I ended up with, Plasma 6 with Bigscreen 5. It worked fine, and it even fixed a few bugs with opening the settings app's that are specific to the Bigscreen UI. However, I want to watch my TV, not tinker with it. So, for now, I have opted to just use Debian 12 Bookworm, as it leaves me with the exact same set up I've been using, just a little more powerful and therefore able to run 1080.

So, if you would like to set up Plasma Bigscreen on a Raspberry Pi 5, you can follow this guide I have done previously for setting it up on the Raspberry Pi 4. Everything should land the same. Hint: to get the lighter install of KDE Plasma, install the gldriver-test package before enabling SDDM login manager.

sudo apt install kde-plasma-desktop gldriver-test

I would also go straight for firefox after logging in to the KDE Desktop, as Chromium has since switched to Web V3 which has affected UBlock Origin. Firefox ESR may or not be installed along with KDE, in which case it will be IceWeasel (Extended Support Version). Raspberry Pi's mods are for the standard Firefox. The mods package adds UBlock Origin as well as the H264ify extension.

sudo apt purge firefox-esr
sudo apt install firefox rpi-firefox-mods