When comparing LinHES vs Fire OS, the Slant community recommends LinHES for most people. In the question“What are the best operating systems for a Home Theatre PC?” LinHES is ranked 6th while Fire OS is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose LinHES is:
The first time LinHES is launched, you are prompted by the configuration tool which is built using the same toolkit as MythTV itself. This allows for a seamless setup experience since LinHES automatically detects and configures the necessary settings correctly. This means that things like recording hardware, infrared receivers and remote controls are all configured automatically.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Seamless setup
The first time LinHES is launched, you are prompted by the configuration tool which is built using the same toolkit as MythTV itself. This allows for a seamless setup experience since LinHES automatically detects and configures the necessary settings correctly. This means that things like recording hardware, infrared receivers and remote controls are all configured automatically.
Pro Great functionality out of the box
LinHES comes with a suite of programs already preconfigured to make it function as a media-centric appliance. Stuff like NFS and Samba are included for sharing files, Webmin and VNC provide remote administration capabilities, furthermore there are various remote system monitoring tools and packages for supporting file-transfer methods (one of them is Bittorrent).
Pro Sideloading
Since it is based on Android you can sideload any Android app.
Pro Cheap devices
Amazon FireTV devices are cheap and have often a discount.
Cons
Con Support only for 64-bit Intel architecture
The latest releases of LinHES only have support for 64-bit Intel architectures. While it's not worth it to worry about 32-bit Intel systems it's worth noting that the absence of an ARM release is problematic.
Con Ads
There are plenty of ads for Amazon Prime or products.
Con Amazon account
Needs an Amazon account.
Con Focuses on Amazon content
The main purpose of the stick is to provide a portal to Amazon's various online services.
Con Proprietary
The UI is proprietary software.