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« on: February 27, 2008, 02:07:03 am »
So I have been working with LinuxMCE for about 8 months now. I started with PlutoHome and found that it was just not easy enough to setup. I have gone from an old Athlon XP to an Opteron 64. I have tried to setup the media center as a wired/wireless router, and many other things, but being that I am not that familiar with Linux, I seem to fail in my attempts. I learn a lot each time, but each time I seem farther back. At the moment, my biggest problems are network based and tv-tuner based. I have an nforce board and the network just seems flaky. I have an HVR-1600, and it is a waste with Linux. I have a PVR-150 and 500 which I will put in soon, but the lack of HD is upsetting. I am soon getting a house, and I have been preparing the system for installation in the house.
Now for the praise, I like what LinuxMCE allows you to do, supposedly, and how it's interface is. I think that there is a lot of good stuff going on.
That all being said, the first complaint I have is in a community, I have posted many times, and have only received a response to maybe one of them. It was barely a help as I still needed to do my own research and I haven't even tried it as I don't want to waste time. (using a USB cable modem as the internet Ethernet adapter and then having just a regular Ethernet for the lan side). I find the people on the forum will look and look and look at posts all day, but nobody seems to reply. I'd bump, but it seems like a waste.
This leads me to my second complain, which is Linux to some extent. Yes, yes, it is open source, and without DRMs and so on. That being said, most things are barely supported. Take the HVR, you can only use it for analog, and that is even a hack. Yes this is a manufacturer's responsibility, but LinuxMCE can be a far superior product than XP MCE or Vista MCE as it includes so much. At this point, the manufacturer's need to know that there are people who want drivers, and if need be have an endorsement area of LinuxMCE which includes a manufacturer's logo saying they approved it.
Nobody is saying what has been done was easy, so get some corporate support. PLEASE.
This leads me to my last complaint. I know there is a lot of garbling back and forth about satellite TV and being able to record HD. Now hear me out. I don't care if things are DRM or not, I keep them for myself and watch them on my PC/tvs. I want to watch something I recorded on any tv in my house. Vista has DRM built in and DirectTV is making a card specifically for Vista computers to record tv. I hate Vista, I would use it if it were Windows Server or XP MCE. If somebody with LinuxMCE was to work directly with Dish Network/Freestar, which uses Linux for their new 722 receivers, I think that a deal could be worked out for a recording card for LinuxMCE. That being said, most likely the drive it recorded to would have to encrypted (so freakin what) but if you presented this and even teamed up with them for a select area they could have you doing installs of these systems in people's house and they would look like an amazing company. Which means we get what we want, and they get huge profits (what they want).
Now that I ranted, I expect that nobody is going to reply, maybe they will read it, and it will just work its way down the list.