When comparing LinuxMCE vs SteamOS, the Slant community recommends SteamOS for most people. In the question“What are the best operating systems for a Home Theatre PC?” SteamOS is ranked 4th while LinuxMCE is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose SteamOS is:
The OS natively supports Nvidia, Intel, and AMD graphics processors.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy installation
The installation wizard automatically finds and detects all your hardware details and adds the configurations accordingly. It also asks for your permission before each step and then carries on the next screen. Everything is completed in 5 minutes.
Pro Easy to use
Even with multiple features and options, LinuxMCE is still very easy to use; everything is very intuitive and dead simple to find your way around with everything being available through a point and click UI.
Pro 10 foot UI
Pro Native graphics processor support
The OS natively supports Nvidia, Intel, and AMD graphics processors.
Pro Streaming service integration (under development)
Valve is in talks with streaming companies such as Spotify and Netflix to bring their features to SteamOS.
Pro For entertainment, it just works
What media center software do for videos, it does for games (and later videos).
Cons
Con Lots of bugs
Unfortunately LinuxMCE has some very annoying bugs. For example there are some things that will not work with the default settings, and that's a real downside for beginners. It's also rather complicated to get a weborbiter working.
Con Hard to install
If you've installed Arch you're probably fine, but for those used to simple installs like (Ubuntu to name just one) you should prepare some patience, determination, and painkillers. Good news is, it's getting better (it's very young).
Con Not built around the desktop experience
SteamOS is, first and foremost, meant to act as a gaming console - it doesn't ship with even some of the most basic applications, such as a file manager or image viewer. As a result, using SteamOS as your primary operating system would require a fair bit of work.
