OSMC is a free and open source media center | Hacker News Reader

OSMC is a free and open source media center

osmc.tv

17 pointsankurpatel10 comments

Because this wasn't clear to me immediately: This is a Linux distribution with Kodi preinstalled that grew out of the Raspbmc project.

Link to their GitHub repo: https://github.com/samnazarko/osmc

This is from their wiki site for more clarification

Kodi is a media center application and OSMC is the operating system that runs Kodi and brings it to your device. OSMC is not a fork of Kodi but rather a Linux distribution that ships Kodi as the main application. This is a similar concept to Kodi running on top of Windows or Android.

OSMC is based on Debian Jessie (a flavour of GNU/Linux) and has been heavily optimised to provide the best TV experience possible.

The information available on the website and github is pretty sparse. Will it play blu-ray iso's or folders? Support for DTS-MA? TV tuner support documentation just says "most work", which really doesn't answer the question at all. In general the documentation just says it will do anything you want it to, without going into any specifics.

Do I have to go back through the docs on Kodi and assume this will do everything Kodi will?

This is an open source project and hence lacks the resources to document or be as polished. As mentioned in my comment below it is a OS which runs only one program which is the Kodi Media Center but it will support Apps along with Kodi Media Center.

> This is an open source project and hence lacks the resources to document or be as polished.

PostgreSQL is an open source project, and has documentation on par with its commercial alternatives. Open source doesn't have to mean poorly documented.

I've been using Raspbmc and OSMC (which spawned from Raspbmc) on both RP1 and RP2 and they've both been great. While OSMC is only on RC2, it's fairly solid and RC3 should be coming any day. As well as standard addons for Kodi, it has an App Store that will ultimately let you install things like torrent clients and the like with ease. Their default skin needs a little work but it's nice and fast.

Great job Sam and the team.

As a recent newcomer to OSMC: It's awesome once it's set up. Finding some of the options though can be tricksy.

What were the options you have issues with? I'm looking into it for one of my nodes.

How many XBMC based distros are there now?

Wake me when they have a device that supports 4k@60fps smoothly. I have yet to see one do so on Kodi.

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