I do not understand why this common commercial operating system is trying to trick the users as if the only Media Center is available for Vista and 7. There are a lot of Media Center programs for Linux, from Live CDs to full-fledged home automation systems. I spent a weekend going through MythTV, XBMC, eAROS and Linux MCE in detail and I absolutely saw nothing less than the Windows’ Media Center. In no way, XBMC or MythTV falls short; if you want to discuss about Linux MCE, Microsoft needs some more years to do the half of it.
So, in this perspective I wonder if the distributions and their communities are falling short of advertising the media center capabilities? Just think about a new convert from Windows to -say openSUSE: how will he know that a media center program (or programs) is available for his computer.
Why did I point to this issue: I am putting my hands on any device I see here in my country and always media center capabilities are in the top displayed features. Think about HP, Sony, Acer and all the big guys showing how elegant their media centers are. In fact they are not showing the Windows’ native media center but rather their own. I know it is not more than eye-candy but in terms of this “eye candy” that the end users value, Windows has a long way to go, considering at least the Compiz Fusion.
I wonder if the developers or the foundations/companies can also put a media center in their default installations and advertise this with the screenshots and other media? I think this will close another gap (which is unexistent by the way) which users ask “can I do everything in Linux that I can do in Windows?”
