This looks really useful. What a shame it is only available in India
(unless you are in India of course). Ubuntu Linux as a set top box.

"JioPC turns any TV into a full PC, aiming to close India’s tech gap

Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries,
is launching JioPC, a virtual desktop service that aims to transform
millions of television screens across India into fully functional
personal computers through Jio's set-top box, potentially bridging the
digital divide in a country where 70% of households have TVs but only
15% own PCs."

"The service offers impressive specifications with 4 virtual CPUs
running at 2.45 GHz, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, all running on
Ubuntu Linux with the Cinnamon desktop environment."

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On Sun, 7/13/2025 5:49 PM, Richmond wrote:

This looks really useful. What a shame it is only available in India
(unless you are in India of course). Ubuntu Linux as a set top box.

"JioPC turns any TV into a full PC, aiming to close India’s tech gap

Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries,
is launching JioPC, a virtual desktop service that aims to transform
millions of television screens across India into fully functional
personal computers through Jio's set-top box, potentially bridging the digital divide in a country where 70% of households have TVs but only
15% own PCs."

"The service offers impressive specifications with 4 virtual CPUs
running at 2.45 GHz, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, all running on
Ubuntu Linux with the Cinnamon desktop environment."

The catch is, you have to rent a fiber optic internet service
to start with, the STB is provided as a rental, to convert IPTV
packets into an HDMI signal. It's not exactly stretching anyones
mental muscles to run Ubuntu on a computer, given the STB is
a computer. Look at a video of a take-apart of the STB and
you can see it's just a computer (about as technically complicated
as an RPi).

It's a paid service, and this offering represents a cross-promotion.

*******

I asked CoPilot for some statistics on Indian Television.

Here's a comprehensive breakdown of television ownership and signal types in India based on the latest available data:

### TV Ownership in India

Percentage of households with a TV
Approximately 67% of Indian households owned a television as of 2024.

Total TV households
Around 210 million homes have a TV set.

Urban vs Rural
Urban penetration: ~87%
Rural penetration: ~61%

### Mode of Signal Reception

BARC India’s 2020 estimates provide a breakdown of how TV signals are received:

| Mode of Signal Reception | Share of TV Households | Approximate Number of Households |
|--------------------------|------------------------|----------------------------------|
| Cable TV (Digital/Analog) | 48% | ~101 million |
| DD Free Dish Over-the-Air | 19% | ~40 million |
| DTH (Satellite) | ~30% | ~63 million |
| IPTV (Fiber Optic) | <1% | ~88,000 (2025 figure) <=== Jolly STB offering...

### IPTV via Fiber Optic Set-Top Boxes

IPTV penetration
Extremely low, with only 88,504 connections in 2025, down from over 600,000 in 2023.
Reasons for low adoption
High cost relative to DTH and OTT bundles
Limited broadband infrastructure
Competition from OTT-enabled DTH platforms

### Cable TV vs DTH vs IPTV

| Type | Description | Popularity | |--------------|------------------------------------------|------------|
| Cable TV | Traditional wired service via MSOs | High |
| DTH | Satellite-based service with set-top box | High |
| IPTV | Internet-based streaming via fiber | Very Low |

*******

I think you can see then, how the fiber-optic-man is throwing
a "novelty" to his declining user-base.

It's really no different than the fiber-optic consumption in my
own neighbourhood. So far, poor attach rate, seemingly nobody
wants to pay $200 a month for fiber, when cable is cheaper.
The situation in apartment buildings, or condo highrises, could
be quite different, where the installation is a lot easier. The highest
fiber rate available, is 3 Gbit/sec (for $200 a month). Whereas
the 1 Gbit/sec service represents better utility for the average user.

Paul

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Paul <[email protected]d> writes:

On Sun, 7/13/2025 5:49 PM, Richmond wrote:

This looks really useful. What a shame it is only available in India
(unless you are in India of course). Ubuntu Linux as a set top box.

"JioPC turns any TV into a full PC, aiming to close India’s tech gap

Mukesh Ambani, India's richest man and chairman of Reliance
Industries, is launching JioPC, a virtual desktop service that aims
to transform millions of television screens across India into fully
functional personal computers through Jio's set-top box, potentially
bridging the digital divide in a country where 70% of households have
TVs but only 15% own PCs."

"The service offers impressive specifications with 4 virtual CPUs
running at 2.45 GHz, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, all running on
Ubuntu Linux with the Cinnamon desktop environment."

The catch is, you have to rent a fiber optic internet service to start
with, the STB is provided as a rental, to convert IPTV packets into an
HDMI signal. It's not exactly stretching anyones mental muscles to run
Ubuntu on a computer, given the STB is a computer. Look at a video of
a take-apart of the STB and you can see it's just a computer (about as technically complicated as an RPi).

It's a paid service, and this offering represents a cross-promotion.

*******

I asked CoPilot for some statistics on Indian Television.

Here's a comprehensive breakdown of television ownership and signal
types in India based on the latest available data:

### TV Ownership in India

Percentage of households with a TV Approximately 67% of Indian
households owned a television as of 2024.

Total TV households Around 210 million homes have a TV set.

Urban vs Rural Urban penetration: ~87% Rural penetration: ~61%

### Mode of Signal Reception

BARC India’s 2020 estimates provide a breakdown of how TV signals are received:

| Mode of Signal Reception | Share of TV Households | Approximate
|Number of Households | |--------------------------|------------------------|----------------------------------|
|Cable TV (Digital/Analog) | 48% | ~101 million | DD Free Dish
|Over-the-Air | 19% | ~40 million | DTH (Satellite) | ~30% | ~63
|million | IPTV (Fiber Optic) | <1% | ~88,000 (2025 figure) <=== Jolly
|STB offering...

### IPTV via Fiber Optic Set-Top Boxes

IPTV penetration Extremely low, with only 88,504 connections in
2025, down from over 600,000 in 2023. Reasons for low adoption
High cost relative to DTH and OTT bundles Limited broadband
infrastructure Competition from OTT-enabled DTH platforms

### Cable TV vs DTH vs IPTV

| Type | Description | Popularity | |--------------|------------------------------------------|------------| |Cable TV | Traditional wired service via MSOs | High | DTH | |Satellite-based service with set-top box | High | IPTV |
|Internet-based streaming via fiber | Very Low |

*******

I think you can see then, how the fiber-optic-man is throwing a
"novelty" to his declining user-base.

It's really no different than the fiber-optic consumption in my own neighbourhood. So far, poor attach rate, seemingly nobody wants to pay
$200 a month for fiber, when cable is cheaper. The situation in
apartment buildings, or condo highrises, could be quite different,
where the installation is a lot easier. The highest fiber rate
available, is 3 Gbit/sec (for $200 a month). Whereas the 1 Gbit/sec
service represents better utility for the average user.

Paul

I forgot to include the link:

https://www.perplexity.ai/discover/tech/jiopc-turns-any-tv-into-a-full-eqIBYjIGSoaXVbk3zLZc3A

but it says in there:

"free with Jio's home broadband service or can be purchased separately
for ₹5,499 ($64)."

$64 seems quite cheap for a computer.

I currently use an old laptop for this purpose, but nvidia stopped
supporting it some time ago and I am relying on kernel module patches
from Ubuntu.

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On 14/07/2025 00:58, Paul wrote:

The catch is, you have to rent a fiber optic internet service
to start with, the STB is provided as a rental, to convert IPTV
packets into an HDMI signal. It's not exactly stretching anyones
mental muscles to run Ubuntu on a computer, given the STB is
a computer. Look at a video of a take-apart of the STB and
you can see it's just a computer (about as technically complicated
as an RPi).

<snip>

The big smart TV manufacturers I know about are Roku (runs Linux under
the hood) Android (a Linux fork) and Apple. I'm told Apple's OS is based
on Unix...

Andy

--
Do not listen to rumour, but, if you do, do not believe it.
Ghandi.

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On Sat, 7/26/2025 4:28 PM, Vir Campestris wrote:

On 14/07/2025 00:58, Paul wrote:

The catch is, you have to rent a fiber optic internet service
to start with, the STB is provided as a rental, to convert IPTV
packets into an HDMI signal. It's not exactly stretching anyones
mental muscles to run Ubuntu on a computer, given the STB is
a computer. Look at a video of a take-apart of the STB and
you can see it's just a computer (about as technically complicated
as an RPi).

<snip>

The big smart TV manufacturers I know about are Roku (runs Linux under the hood) Android (a Linux fork) and Apple. I'm told Apple's OS is based on Unix...

Andy

A few OSes have as parents, Carnegie Mellon MACH.

A programmer who worked with me, she was a CM graduate and
used to annoy me with Mach anecdotes :-) She was still a good
person, so this was one of the prices I paid to have a dev to
use my hardware.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_%28kernel%29

"Mach's derivatives are the basis of the operating system kernel
in GNU Hurd and of Apple's XNU kernel used in
macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS."

Even without being a direct part of a project, concepts from Mach
were being used by people for other projects.

I even bought a copy of MachTen from Tenon systems, and presumably
that was a derivative of MACH from CM. And if we drove to the Tenon
offices, we'd likely find a graduate of CM working there. Tenon
also did an IP stack (back in the days when major companies did not
write their IP stack, but instead bought the stack from a smaller
company specializing in IP stacks). Today, every company would instead
have their own stack, due to certain developments in the field.
It's not necessary to buy a stack any more. Maybe an embedded OS
company would do that, but that should be about it.

Paul

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On Sat, 26 Jul 2025 18:58:43 -0400, Paul wrote:

A few OSes have as parents, Carnegie Mellon MACH.

Mach is a microkernel. In spite of many decades of ballyhoo, they have
never become competitive with more conventional kernel designs (like
Linux) for real-world use.

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