The current state of play on o/s and media apps?

[carled]

So my (limited) experimentation so far has led me to the following conclusions:

If you require a web browser (with flash) capabilities then you cannot stick with the base O/S
If you require video playback of some kind then you cannot stick with just squeezeplayer
If you require IPTV channels other than BBC iPlayer then you cannot stick with the base O/S

If you go for Joli then you have to install something like tv catchup for live channels other than BBC iPlayer
If you go for Joli then you need to be relatively technically capable in order to find your way into/out of squeeze player and xbmc and the submenus of the joli system as it's not possible to have the shortcuts on the front screen. Simple enough for technically aware people, but (based on my experiments with wife and kids) the equivalent of splitting the atom with a brick.

I considered Android but a quick read-through the messages on that lead me to believe that it's got a lot of stability issues and also there's no chance of a browser running flash, so that's out.

I am yet to experiment with any other distro (are any of them significantly different/offer more config options than Joli's?) so I can't comment on those, but as the base O/S appears to be massively hamstrung with lack of installable apps with all required functionality, Joli would be good if a) it would stop freezing up every so often and b) it was a bit more friendly in allowing for home page icons for apps.

[BuZz]

If you go for Joli then you have to install something like tv catchup for live channels other than BBC iPlayer

If you go for Joli then you need to be relatively technically capable in order to find your way into/out of squeeze player and xbmc and the submenus of the joli system as it's not possible to have the shortcuts on the front screen.

tv catchup plugin works very well on xbmc

i dont think you have to be that technically capable of loading xbmc on jolios. first you just need to add it to the local apps screen, and then it is always two presses away from the home screen. just local apps -> xbmc done.