Known Limitations

Known Limitations

Hardware and graphics

• NVIDIA RTX 50 (Blackwell) cards are not supported yet: Debian 13's NVIDIA driver and open driver both predate them. Expect at best a basic picture.
• Secure Boot stops NVIDIA's driver and Broadcom's wl Wi-Fi driver from loading. NVIDIA boxes fall back to the slower open driver; Broadcom chips that need wl have no Wi-Fi. Turn Secure Boot off to use them.
• On NVIDIA's driver, Moonlight may flicker or show old frames. Use the Basic Graphics boot entry and report your GPU.
• Hybrid laptops (Intel/AMD plus NVIDIA) use the GPU the firmware starts with, usually the integrated one; there is no switching to the NVIDIA GPU.
• When wl drives a Broadcom Wi-Fi chip, some older Broadcom laptops lose wired Ethernet (its driver is blocked along with the other Broadcom drivers).
• Open nouveau driver (older NVIDIA, or newer NVIDIA on the general ISO): Moonlight decodes in software, and Kepler GPUs stay at their boot clocks. The VIDEO DECODER FIRMWARE option is experimental.
• The installer itself has no extra firmware, so network hardware that needs firmware may not work inside the installer. The installed system has it.
• 4K60 is best effort. HDR is not officially supported. A game's STREAM SETTINGS can ask for it (QUALITY, or CUSTOM with HDR ON), only with hardware decoding; the result depends on your TV and gaming PC.
• On PCs without 3D graphics the wave on the home screen stands still and animations are shorter.

Updates and storage

• Saving the current system before an update needs about 7 GB free on the disk, besides the download. With less, the update stops before changing anything and says so; you can turn SAVE BEFORE UPDATE off. A box updating from 0.2.x, or from the USB stick, that has too little room updates without a saved copy and says so. 32 GB disks or larger are recommended.
• Only one saved version is kept; the next update replaces it.
• Updates are checked with HTTPS from GitHub and the release's SHA256SUMS; the ISO and checksum file are not signed.
• Every update downloads the whole ISO (about 1 GB). The SOFTWARE UPDATE screen cannot install from a USB stick (the command line can).
• A live USB cannot update itself; write the new ISO to it. Without storage it forgets pairings, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and setup at every power-off.
• Installing CouchLiteOS onto the USB stick it runs from is not possible yet; it is planned for a 0.3.x update.
• Making a second persistence stick needs Linux. SET UP STORAGE ON THIS STICK does not.

Interface

• If the TV interface cannot start on a PC, the box starts the classic interface by itself.
• The background music has no setting on screen yet. To turn it off, set music = off under [appearance] in /var/lib/couchliteos/config.ini (Themes and Appearance).
• TYPE ON PHONE sends the text over your home network without encryption. For a password, use it only on a home network you trust.

Apps

• Remote Desktop: the RDP client in Debian 13 is marked experimental by its developers. One session at a time. Saved passwords are stored unencrypted (root-only). Debian 13's xrdp may show its own login screen.
• Moonlight streams do not carry the microphone (Moonlight and Sunshine have no microphone passthrough). chiaki-ng does send it to a PS5.
• Steam is not installed. Only controller support files from Debian's steam-devices package are included.
• Command apps must already be installed on the box.
• Web browsers are not in the download; they install from the internet. A browser added on a live USB stick is gone after a restart, even with a persistence stick or storage on the stick; add it again, or install CouchLiteOS to the disk.
• Streaming services: some (Disney+, for example) do not support Linux, so playback is not guaranteed.
• The controller mouse ON/OFF choice in ACTIVE APPLICATIONS lasts until the launcher restarts.

Network

• IPv4 only. IPv6 is disabled.
• Tailscale is optional and off until you sign in. Relayed connections may be too slow for streaming or USB/IP.
• A PlayStation in another house cannot be reached through Tailscale.

Input and Bluetooth

• The boot menu and the installer need a keyboard.
• The launcher uses a US keyboard layout.
• Bluetooth depends on the adapter's kernel and firmware support. There is no desktop Bluetooth app; use Settings > BLUETOOTH.