I was thinking of using my RaspPI Rev B with some server type things, not too much CPU. It's the one computer in my house which is always on (everything else I have is a laptop or aggressively sleeps).

Can OpenELEC run Linux apps, or is the distro too oddball? Should I move to Raspbian instead? How much extra resource headroom does a RaspPI box have while running XMBC, or should I just get another box for this?


OpenELEC is a severely stripped down version of Linux intended as a media player.

If you are looking for painless software installations, regular updates and security patches, flawlessly working software -- you'd better choose a more "regular" distribution, like Raspbian.

If you need a media player and still want to play with Linux -- get two or more RPis, it's quite cheap and definitely much cheaper than spending your valuable time on troubleshooting.

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