Are mini stick PCs practical to set up as a media player, eg with jellyfin? Some advantages are the small form factor that plugs straight into the HDMI port, and flexibility/privacy vs using a dongle from a shitty company like amazon/google/roku.
Are there any things to watch out for to ensure it has enough compute power and hardware decoding? I just want it to play HD video with a jellyfin app/browser page.
I’m assuming it’s no big deal to install Linux on (x86 hardware?), do you need to watch out for specific device support? Thanks


They’re surprisingly expensive for what they are. I’ve been shopping for broken laptops like that for ages to use as an emulation console for my kids. Ended up going with a NUC/mini PC and that’s got a smaller footprint, better cooling and tends to be quieter.