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# Bazzite quietly added support for TV remotes for supremely lazy HTPC experience
- URL: https://www.siliconinsights.org/bazzite-quietly-added-support-for-tv-remotes-for-supremely-lazy-htpc-experience/
- Published: 2026-10-16T19:18:12.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-16T19:18:12.000Z
- Description: The year of Linux sees the addition of a weird but useful feature to one of the most popular gaming distros.
- Author: Matthew Connatser
- Tags: News

Earlier this week, Bazzite released a new update, and on the surface it was pretty normal. The kernel version was bumped up a bit, Nvidia users got a more recent driver, and the Bazzite team got to work on making updates within game mode actually functional (personally I have never been able to update without going into desktop mode). There was also an update for InputPlumber, the latest version of which was pretty big, mostly for handhelds though. Overall, a nice patch for under-the-hood stuff.

Everything seemed to be good to go after I updated my own Bazzite PC, so I decided to give my DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter another shot so I could get CEC support back. I'll have a piece at some point detailing what I did to achieve stability without really compromising on anything, but at some point during this process I noticed that my Bazzite PC reported that an "Xbox 360 controller" was connected via USB. This was strange because I had literally just got a quartet of 8bitdo Ultimate 2 Wireless Bluetooth controllers (review coming soon) and this mystery Xbox controller was definitely none of them and it only popped up after the update.

I just chalked it up to the usual Linux/Bazzite weirdness at first. Then a couple of days ago, I turned on my Bazzite PC to watch some YouTube with my wife (we switched from the LG TV app because VacuumTube on Bazzite is much faster and has no ads). Annoying, CEC didn't automatically switch the input to the Bazzite PC because the TV was already on or something, so I did it manually. Then due to muscle memory I kept pressing the directional buttons on the TV remote to navigate, instantly realized that wasn't gonna work, and began to reach for a controller.

Except the Bazzite PC *responded to the button presses on the remote.*

Some more button presses confirmed that I wasn't crazy, and that my Bazzite HTPC suddenly acquired support for my TV remote. How this happened is beyond me, but I suspect that big InputPlumber update might have had something to do with it, specifically because of one line in the bug fix portion that states "mapping error in CEC configs." So, in theory, it's something that wouldn't be too hard to get working in other distros. Bazzite's developers probably didn't even know this update would introduce this feature.

As for what hardware you need, I'm not 100% sure. You need CEC, which for a TV setup means you either need a Steam Machine or some other prebuilt PC with CEC included, or a graphics card that has CEC on DisplayPort plus an adapter that converts the port to HDMI and also carries over CEC. I'm using the second option, pairing an RX 9060 XT 8GB with a UGreen 85564.

I can't tell you exactly what TVs and TV remotes will work with this, but at least on my LG C5 (I bought it before the recent allegations came to light) and the included Magic Remote it works. The feature that I believe makes this possible is called "Universal Control" on LG; I don't know exactly what the equivalent is on other displays. But if you suddenly see Bazzite or whatever distro you have recognize an Xbox 360 controller you don't own, you've probably got it working.

Also, this feature doesn't fully work with CEC wakeup if you have the TV fully power off instead of going on standby. I experienced this firsthand: I would turn on my Bazzite PC, CEC would turn on the TV, the Xbox 360 controller would show up, but the remote inputs wouldn't register. I only thought to switch my TV back to standby mode because I had changed it recently to see if it improved image stability with my adapter (thankfully it had nothing to do with stability, otherwise it would be a total Catch 22).

Steam input might also interfere with this setup. I couldn't get any of my remote's inputs to do anything in VacuumTube even though the controller settings said it was receiving button presses. Disabling Steam input through the properties submenu did the trick and didn't seem to introduce any new problems.

So, is the experience any good? At least for normal HTPC stuff, yes. You only get six buttons: up, down, left, right, A, and B. This is quite literally the bare minimum for workable navigation, but you can get around SteamOS and YouTube/VacuumTube with just these buttons; you can pull up the left sidebar menu by pressing B on the home screen and VacuumTube will close if you press B until you're back on the login screen. Any app that doesn't close when you press B is gonna be a problem since there doesn't seem to be a button binded to the home button.

You also can't do long or infinite presses on a button (it just registers as multiple presses) nor can you press multiple buttons at the same time. So any hopes for using macros or combinations to get more buttons in the mix is probably not going to work. At least on my LG TV, I suspect there won't be any support for the pointer because it's greyed out until I pull up the TV's overlay.

Saying a year is the "year of Linux" has been a bit of a meme for some time now, but unironically I think 2026 has really been Linux's year. Bazzite is in an excellent state for HTPCs whether we're talking media or gaming, at least compared to 2025, [CachyOS has gotten to be so polished](https://www.siliconinsights.org/i-tried-cachyos-on-my-laptop-for-a-month-i-wont-be-going-back-to-windows/) that I'm using it on a laptop I bought in January, and in general Linux is making progress in meeting users' needs while Windows is stagnating or backsliding. This whole remote thing is a minor feature, but sometimes it's the little things that count the most.