7 Free Open Source Apps to Watch Live TV in Linux Desktop

Looking for an app to watch live TV, movies, or other video contents through IPTV channels? Here I’m going to introduce some for you.

IPTV, Internet Protocol television, is a service to deliver television content over the internet. There are quite a few applications support iptv playback. And, here I’m going to introduce some that I know for you.

Tips: Most apps below don’t have any IPTV channels out-of-box! You may visit free-iptv or iptv-org/iptv to get some.

1. VLC

VLC, the popular media player for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS and tvOS, supports IPTV steams through M3U, M3U8, or network stream URLs.

If you happened to be an user of VLC video player, then you don’t need to install any other apps.

Just launch VLC, then either go to Media -> Open Network Steam or press Ctrl+N. Next, paste the URL of the iptv channels in pop-up dialog under “Network” tab, or add your M3U/M3U8 files under “File” tab.

Finally, click “Play” to stream the IPTV channels, and you can then browse channels using the playlist (View -> Playlist).

Get VLC

VLC is available in Ubuntu Software or App Center for Ubuntu, while others can get it from either system app store or VLC website.

2. MPV

MPV media player, the popular MPlayer/MPlayer2 fork, also support IPTV steams playback.

With MPV, you may simply drag’n’drop M3U/M3U8 file or URL into the media player window. Then, press “g” -> “p” and use up/down arrows to switch channels.

Get MPV

MPV also is available in App Center (or Ubuntu Software) for Ubuntu. And most Linux has it in system repositories. While, other systems may see the official installation page for more.

3. Hypnotix

Linux Mint, the popular Ubuntu based Linux distribution, has an IPTV player application called Hypnotix.

It’s a Python application that uses MPV (libmpv) as back-end for video playback, and, it supports M3U URL, Xtream API, and local M3U playlist.

The app is configured with Free-TV, providing hundreds of TV channels and movies out-of-the-box, which are well organized with Country groups.

Get Hypnotix

Hypnotix is available in Linux Mint 22, ALT & Arch Linux repositories. While there are some community maintained packages for other Linux distributions:

• Mint-tools PPA for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04.
• OBS repository for Debian 12, Raspbian 12, and Ubuntu 24.04.
• Copr repository for Fedora.

4. Open TV

Open TV is an ultra-fast, simple and powerful cross-platform IPTV app that works in Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

The app is written in Rust and uses libmpv as backend for video playback. It supports streaming channels from M3U/M3U8 file, URL, and Xtream, along with following features:

• Record while watching
• Multi IPTV sources
• Control the UI from a TV remote
• Super low RAM usage

Get Open TV

Open TV provides pre-build installer packages which are available to download in its github releases page:

NOTE: for Linux, Windows and macOS, it also requires mpv, ffmpeg, yt-dlp as runtime dependencies. While, Linux may also use the Flatpak package with all dependencies in bundle.

5. Yuki-iptv

Yuki-iptv is a free open-source IPTV player with EPG support.

It’s another Python written application that uses mpv as backend for media playback. The app supports M3U / XSPF playlists, XTream API, as well as:

• TV guide (EPG) support.
• Stream recording
• Playlist editor
• TV archive / catchup

Get Yuki-iptv

The app provides official .deb package for Debian/Ubuntu users in its source page:

While most Linux may also get the app using the Flatpak package which runs in sandbox environment.

6. IPTVnator

IPTVnator is another IPTV player with EPG support.

It’s a cross-platform app that works on Linux, Windows, macOS, which supports video playback through either VLC, MPV or HTML video player.

Features of IPTVnator include M3u and M3u8 playlist support, Xtream Code (XC) and Stalker portal (STB) support, as well as:

• TV guide (EPG) support.
• External player support: VLC and MPV.
• TV archive, catchup, timeshift functionality
• Custom “User Agent” header configuration for playlists

Get IPTVnator

The source code as well as pre-build packages for Linux, Windows, and macOS are available to download at the link below:

7. TV-Lite

TV-Lite is a IPTV player, with Sopcast and Acestream handling support. It’s a C++ app that works in Windows and Linux.

The app will automatically import list of channels from iptv-org and this Romania db. While, user may manually add channels from M3U, M3U8, Xstream.

Other features include:

• use VLC as backend for video playback.
• support http/socks proxy.
• recording.

Summary

In this post, I’ve introduced 7 apps for IPTV steams playback. If you just want to play a remote m3u/m3u8 URL, then VLC and MPV can do the job.

For IPTV player, there are Linux Mint’s Hypnotix with hundreds of free-iptv channels out-of-the-box, and TV-Lite that automatically import tons of TV channels from iptv-org. While, Open-TV, Yuki-iptv, and IPTVnator are available for choice with more features, such as TV guide (EPG), recording, and TV remote.

If you know more free open-source IPTV player application, feel free to leave a comment below to let me know.

Source: UbuntuHandbook