{"id":49321,"date":"2025-07-23T16:54:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T16:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/?p=49321"},"modified":"2025-07-25T08:09:29","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:09:29","slug":"7-free-open-source-apps-to-watch-live-tv-in-linux-desktop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ubuntuhandbook.org\/index.php\/2025\/07\/7-free-open-source-apps-to-watch-live-tv-in-linux-desktop\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Free Open Source Apps to Watch Live TV in Linux Desktop"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

1. VLC<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

If you happened to be an user of VLC video player, then you don’t need to install any other apps.<\/p>\n

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

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

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Get VLC<\/h4>\n

VLC is available in Ubuntu Software or App Center for Ubuntu, while others can get it from either system app store or VLC website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2. MPV<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

MPV media player, the popular MPlayer\/MPlayer2 fork, also support IPTV steams playback.<\/p>\n

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

Get MPV<\/h4>\n

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<\/a> page for more.<\/p>\n

3. Hypnotix<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Linux Mint, the popular Ubuntu based Linux distribution, has an IPTV player application called Hypnotix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The app is configured with Free-TV, providing hundreds of TV channels and movies out-of-the-box<\/b>, which are well organized with Country groups.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Get Hypnotix<\/h4>\n

Hypnotix is available in Linux Mint 22 out-of-the-box. And it’s available in the official repositories of PCLinuxOS, ALT Linux according to pkgs.org<\/a>. While there are some community maintained packages for other Linux distributions:<\/p>\n