Here it comes again; please do not compare XBMC to an operating-system nor expect XBMC to act as an operating-system, because XBMC is not an operating-system and XBMC will never be or become an operating-system. Please do not either compare XBMC to an application that runs on-top on a operating-system which can co-exist with other application that run on-top on that operating-system, because XBMC can never be that as long as it is a native Xbox XDK-based application. Sure someone may someday port XBMC to a other game-console that allows several applications/games to run at the same time or maybe someone someday port XBMC to be an application that runs on-top of a real operating-system like Linux or Microsoft Windows, but that is not what this discussion is about, plus there are already other topic-threads in these forums that discusses those ideas, so lets not start another depate about the same thing, thanks you in advance. (If however you insist on continueing this in that direction then this whole topic thread will be moved by us to the off-topic jokes section, as that is what the discussion will become, a joke, with non-developers trying to discuss low-level programming design, but if you really are a C/C++ programmer yourself and plan on coding it yourself then you are welcome to start a new topic thread in the developer forum). End-users should stick to the existing threads:
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Would you like to see XBMC on a other console/hardware-platform? (link)
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XBMC GUI Win32 PC Development Environment for skinners & python developers (link)
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Xbox360 and XBMC (XBMC on Xbox360?)? (link)
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Port XBMC to Linux-OS (XBMC on a Linux computer or other Linux device?)? (link)
To clearify; I have explanied this before many times before; Please understand that we have to draw the line somewhere, as
XBMC is after all not an operating system with all acomponing software you can install, ...there are all types of odd things requested to be integrated into XBMC, like e-mail server/clients, build-in mini-games, SAMBA file-server, DHCP-server, JAVA-Runtime-Enviroment, GPS navigator, even requests for built-in game-console emulators and many other things that do not belong in a media-player application (which is after all what XBMC is), ...now I know that many people get excited when they see everything that XBMC can already do and they want it to do '
just a little more' to "
make XBMC perfect for them", I can even partially understand this but in the end you have to be realistic, (and only arguing that "My Weather" doesn't belong in a media-center so why should not their '
special feature' not also be added too is not reason enough to add all and everything you might think of to XBMC).
Again here is why!;
XBMC is not an operating system. XBMC is only one excutable running in one process, as the Xbox BIOS (which is as close to an operating system you get on the original Xbox as it is it that controlles the low-level access to the Xbox hardware resourses such as memory, processor and harddrive, and presents that as a high-level API (Application Program Interface) to the application or game running on the Xbox) do not support more than one excutable/process running at any one time. The simplified definition of a Operating-System (OS) is an under-laying system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware, and additionally can have several excutables (
application software) running under it at the time (and each of those excutables can be running one or more processes), please see
wikipedia.org for a more detailed description. This XBMC can never be.
If you want to run a true operating system on the Xbox then a
xbox-linux distribution is your only choise (in order to run Linux on the xbox they had to replace the Xbox-BIOS with a real x86 bios, as the original Xbox-BIOS can not run Linux, ...and the Linux BIOS for Xbox can not Xbox games made with the XDK).
PS! See Xbox-Linux FAQ for more answers to questions like:
The Xbox is a standard PC, isn't it?, and
Why not develop on top of the Xbox kernel?