Technical / Feature Advantages to OSX over Linux?

[Livin]

This question is coming from an OSX / Linux noobie but a Windows veteran. I'm interested in possibly running OSX w/ XBMC and this sparked some thoughts.

The question strictly pertains to XBMC running on an OS... not "which OS is better".

I'm curious if OSX has anything inherent that Linux does not which XBMC can leverage technically to provide a more robust feature set?

So you get where I'm going with this...

Widgets:
I can see how Widgets might allow massively easy GUI customization for users?
From my research (remember noob here) it seems that there may not be a single/unified Linux Widget engine - thus each desktop has their own flavor. If this is the case, I'd see an advantage for OSX here.

Seamless Windows Application Interop:
Using VMware Fusion, the Windows apps we might need/want to run for PVR, Home Automation, etc and tightly integrate with XBMC might be possible here.

Please chime in...

[zAo_OSX]

The best thing for OSX developers is probably the guaranties you get:
- Intel Macs have SSE, SSE2 and SSE3
- Intel Macs have OpenGL (Quatz Extreme)
- Only one 'package management' system (*.app vs *.deb, *.rpm etc)
Together with some other standardizations.

[griffore]

and soon to be SSE4

[rodalpho]

For developers, sure. But the main advantage is that OSX comes preinstalled on macs and is incredibly user friendly. The barrier to entry is lower. I have great hopes for the XBMC/OSX and if development continues to parity with XBMC/linux can easily see it quickly becoming the most popular platform.

[mebby]

Originally Posted by rodalpho

For developers, sure. But the main advantage is that OSX comes preinstalled on macs and is incredibly user friendly. The barrier to entry is lower. I have great hopes for the XBMC/OSX and if development continues to parity with XBMC/linux can easily see it quickly becoming the most popular platform.

I think this is a great point. While I'm pretty adept and reading the XBMC online manual and finding my around the application I do not consider myself technical enough to build my own linux machine. So for people like me, being able to buy something like a Mac Mini to install XBMC on would be pure bliss.

I'm not opposed to Linux but I can tell you that I've already done some reading on it and I'm basically lost.

[Livin]

Is the graphics acceleration working on the OSX version? I've read that the Linux version does not have it working.

[topfs2]

Is the graphics acceleration working on the OSX version? I've read that the Linux version does not have it working.

Well graphicacceleration xbmc-linux have (xbmc-osx to) but it does not support ofloading of video processing to gpu.

Is the graphics acceleration working on the OSX version? I've read that the Linux version does not have it working.

I just can't see how widgets could help xbmc-osx or xbmc-linux. Sure if you have a HTPC and have another computer and want to remote control it. But then it doesn't mater if the xbmc computer have widgets or not.

Oh btw, I think there's just one widget engine in linux? screenlets?

[d4rk]

Originally Posted by Affini

Is the graphics acceleration working on the OSX version? I've read that the Linux version does not have it working.

Graphics acceleration has always been working on the Linux version (and the OS X version) as long as you have OpenGL drivers installed (quite likely these days). Video decoding, which is handled by ffmpeg, doesn't yet offload any decoding to the GPU as far as I know.