LinuxMCE - Boo!

Well, I installed it and I gave it a good go. I give it 3 out of 10.

There's a number of problems that I experienced with this distribution, some important, some not. As a result I am currently reinstalling Ubuntu 7.10, to install XBMC for Linux to give that a test run.

Issues:

• The X11 drivers for the G35/X3500 GMA Video cards aren't quite there. I sort of knew this might happen running the absolute latest in graphics products. The i965 drivers seem to do ok, there's just some issues with GL/Shading. I am certain that it will get sorted.
• The way LinuxMCE assumes that it's just going to be your home gateway for internet access and all things network is just purely wrong. The fact you can't even get it to ignore outside/inside interface information and fall back to a single NIC just throws me. The fact that you almost certainly have to run a DHCP server is also a pain in the rear.
• The RAID (albiet software) configuration is just stupid. I cannot using their RAID tool just mirror the primary disk. If I could have got all the networking stuff working, I would have configured Linux's MDRAID myself, but I was already frustrated enough.
• The Interface is 'ok', and flickered a little. I am sure this was related to the X11 video drivers.
• The fact I couldn't ever get the network sorted out meant adding Windows based Samba media was tedios, if not painful. I also couldn't figure out the filesystem and directory structure.
• While alot of these issues can normally be resolved reading Wiki's, forums and documentation there's no-one really looking after the collation of all this data and it's so hard to find. Additionally you have to search internally on their Wiki/Forum to find anything as for some reason Google's got very little results for LinuxMCE.

At this stage, I am going to see what I think of XBMC on my new hardware. I realise this project is even more in it's infancy but it shows considerably better signs of 'community' organisation.

The LinuxMCE is something I might come back to when I have a little more time, it's just for now I got frustrated doing anything outside the box of whatever their developers have dreamed up.