What OS to choose

[gianluca]

Hi Irads and All,
thanks a lot for your good work into this forum.
I'd like to have a suggestion from you on which OS and applications can better fit my requirements.
This is my second fit...first time was a Geode powered fitPC 1.0.
Now I bought fit-pc2 with wifi and highest cpu clock speed, and I would like to turn it into a media station.

I don't want to make it a simple media center, however. In that case I think I already know the answer....I can use XMBC+a light Linux Distro.

What I would like to run on my 'fit' are the following apps:

1) a web browser
2) an xmbc-like application to play all a/v contents (I don't need any broadcast or streaming feature over the LAN).
3) a webcam to make video calls (with several IM's and VoIP clients).
4) I would like to have IR working with remote control.

This system has to be as much easy as possible, since it has to be used by my mother also.

I've tried 2 months ago Windows 7RC, but it looked little bit slow to me.
I'm wondering if any improvements on performances now, and also with WiFi, since many times on this OS it looses connections.

Is there any Linux distro and other application similar to XMBC, that also has Browser and other stuff?...

Are all drivers compatible with Windows7 at the moment?
Who provides better performnces!

Thanks a lot,
Gianluca

[irads]

Actually the most complete setup for your needs on fit-PC2 is fit-PC2 XP HD.
XBMC is not a good choice in this setup due to lack of OpenGL. You have the choice of MPC-HC or WMP 11 - both give very good HD performance using the provided CyberLink codecs + k-lite standard. Enabling IR support is quite easy using EventGhost.

We are working on optimizing Windows 7 offering.

In Ubuntu the potential is there but you need to do non-trivial adaptations to bring it to the state of an easy-to-use media PC - like getting XBMC to work with Mplayer-vaapi.

[gianluca]

Hi Irads,
thanks a lot for your detailed answer.
Adaptations do not sound scary to me. I went through some posts in the linux sections and I saw the one regarding Mplayer. I usually patch and recompile linux kernel for work. The point is, I'm not full aware of "multimedia" options we can have on linux, since it's not my field.
Can you clarify the changes you're mentioning on XMBC and also, if there's any other sw I can use as media center, that include integration with a web browser.

Thanks again,
Gianluca

[irads]

It is not my field either (we make the HW...)
I believe there are other forum members that can help you better.
You may also post questions on XBMC and Linux A/V forums.