bet you're fun at partys

we just use this on the dells at work https://bios-pw.org/

Amlogic S905X boxes are the better choice for Kodi these days. You can installi LibreElec, they are cheaper than a Raspberry Pi 3 and they support 4K & HDR and have hardware acceleration for H.265 (HEVC) and VP9.

I've never been entirely comfortable with these HTPC boxes with factory-issued OS, especially connecting to a local network.

Do you have any advice or feedback on Amlogic S905X-based boxes that can have the OS flashed to something more generic (Debian-based, ideally)? Thanks!

Yes. The box comes with Android 6 on it and you replace it with LibreElec. I think they all work with LibreElec these days - no guarantees!

The also cost almost twice as much, and don't have the ecosystem/community support around them that the pi has.

No, I paid 23€ for an S905X with 1GB RAM 8 GB Flash. The Raspberry Pi 3 that it replaced still costs more than 30€ (and it has 0GB flash).

I agree about the ecosystem. As long as you just want to use it as a mediacenter all you care about is that LibreElec with Kodi works well.

feels like a troll piece