I like to keep bigscreen mode primarily for games, but I find the desktop mode is not ideal when using from the TV even with a Steam Controller to use media streaming apps (Firefox PWA, x86_64 Waydroid Aurora/F-Droid, and native Discover Store apps), and adjust other settings.

The answer to this pain-point is Plasma Bigscreen. It has a Android TV like interface, and works well with remotes (FYI, the most reliable one I’ve tested) and controllers.

Someone recently gave it some much needed love to bring to QT6, but it could use some additional contributors to bring it to where it needs to be, hopefully in time for the Steam Machine launch.

If you want the “stable” QT5 version, it is available in the AUR as:

plasma-bigscreen

But it does not work perfectly. I am staking my hopes in the next version.

If you want try the latest, or help with filing bugs, or contribute code, the QT6 version which I find more reliable in some ways, less in others, and associated dependencies are:

plasma-bigscreen-git
plasma-remotecontrollers-git
qt6-virtualkeyboard