I used Kodi with LibreElec for years in a similar setup. It was nice… but in practice I didn’t really use the “cool” functionalities (like indexing, image preview, Web remote control, etc) so instead I checked how Kodi works and noticed DLNA. I saw that my favorite video player, namely VLC, supports DLNA. I then looking for DLNA server on Linux, found few and stuck to the simplest I found, namely minidlna. It’s quite basic, at the least the way I use it, but for my usage it’s enough :

• install VLC on clients, including Android video projector, phones, XR HMDs, etc
• install minidlna on server (RPi5)
• configure minidlna to serve the right directory with subdirectories ( /var/lib/minidlna by default )
• configure few extra software that get videos to push them (via scp script and ssh-key) to rpi5:/var/lib/minidlna/

voila… very reliable setup (been using for more than a year on a daily basis.

To consider related to evaluation of said hardware, cf https://lemmy.ml/post/20849010/14003579

Just yesterday I pinned VLC on my KDE Plasma Task Manager. Why? Because this way I can directly open “Recent Files” from it. I discovered about this functionality just last week with Libre Office Draw. It’s so efficient, it absolutely changed how I use my computer daily!

but… why do I bother with this long example? Because IMHO that’s from KDE, not Debian. When a distro improve the UX, as I also wish, it can be mostly by selecting the best software in its packages to maintain (e.g. here KDE but yes could indeed be their own custom made package, even though it requires a lot more resource AND other distro could also use them back assuming it’s FLOSS) but arguably the UX is mostly of the distribution itself is limited to the installation process.

a shortage of meaningful innovation

Well… a distribution IS a selection of packages and a way to keep them working together. Arguably the “only” innovation in that context is HOW to do that and WHICH packages to rely on. For the first, the “latest” real change could be considered immutable distributions, as on the SteamDeck, and declarative setup, e.g. NixOS. For the second… well I don’t actually know if anybody is doing that, maybe things like PrimTux for kids at schools in France?

Anyway, I agree but I think it’s tricky to be innovative there so let me flip the question, what would YOU expect from an innovative distribution?