A raspberry pi running Kodi has been serving me well for years.
Easy install paths include LibreELEC and osmc. I believe both are based on debian.
FWIW I chose and have been happy with osmc.
Regardless of the choice, Kodi has a plugin system for things like YouTube, you can access your media via the jellyfin plugin/app, or by pointing Kodi at your media. It has a remote app available on android and iOS, and for the most part just works.
Totally fair. I didn’t know there was an Ubuntu sway remix. That’s nice to know.
Don’t know how you feel about fedora, but their atomic sway spin has been great. Rock solid with a sane, functional sway config.
It’s really easy. Graphene has a web flasher with very good instructions, and once flashed, you’re good to go. I haven’t looked back. Once installed you’ll want your apps.
If you want to sign in to the play store and connect your google account to the phone for your apps, you can do that, bu then you’re kinda right back where you started. Not fully, because Graphene, but Google is still gonna google and suck up any and all data it can.
So for apps, look to F-Droid, Obtainium, and Aurora store.
F-Droid and Obtainium for FOSS apps, and Aurora store for play store apps without having to sign in to the play store.
Pi4 8gb. FWIW, the 5 is not great for media. I don’t remember the details, but iirc they removed hardware decoding from the 5.