XBMC running on the Raspberry Pi, everyone's first use

There is a distro being build with XBMC for the Pi - Raspbmc.  The website is at http://www.raspbmc.com/ and you can find the author on twitter as @SamNazarko

Funnily enough, this is one of the uses I'm planning for mine - it means I should be able to stream live and recorded TV plus other medai (once Eden sorts out it's uPnP issues) from my MythTV box to rooms in my house where I can't (for various reasons) run cables from the aerial.  Hopefully mine will arrive before the digital switchover!

Speaking for myself, I find this kind of sad.  The purpose behind RasPi is to re-kindle an interest in programming, particularly among young people who have largely experienced computer-based products as consumption devices.  You're probably right that RasPi's chief use will be as a cheap consumption device and game-playing platform instead of as a tool for creation and exploration.  OTOH, I'm glad that the level of interest -- from whatever source -- will keep RasPi's price low.

JMO/YMMV

I'm hoping that even if inexpensive gaming and entertainment is the intial hook for the masses that, since it is very hackable, some folks will be tempted to "scratch their own itch" and get creative.  The forefather of the Raspberry Pi's Linux OS, Unix, was the result of a Bell Labs engineer wanting to play a space travel simulator

This is great to see! Although this is one of my many projects, the strength is that it is running "off the shelf" linux projects!

Well, some people always see glasses half full, others half empty. :-)

The half-full (ie. positive) perspective for XBMC on Raspberry Pi is that every additional unit purchased, regardless of how it is used, lowers the cost of volume production of the board for everyone because it leads to larger batches being made.  We all benefit.

It also spreads the use of Linux and free software throughout society which is a good thing, and it reduces the number of DRM-ridden media players which is even better.

Plus, XBMC on Rpi consumes less power than running on regular PCs, so even the environment benefits.

What's not to like?

I am not sure of the economies of scale can be achieved, but I like the idea that I can let the kids go off on the thing to make any projects they can concieve (and with a little guidance.)  I can see these going out to rural schools to really up the interest in Science and Engineering.  Think of the possibilites!

This is a great place to start. Once you have the equipment, then people will be interested in what else can be done with it. If it were released without operating system, demonstrated software etc, there would have been much less interest.

anyone knows a good tut on how to install xbmc on debian? Ive installed it on my fast computer, but its lagging a lot! Im using Virtual Box...

OpenELEC on Raspberry Pi (OpenELEC for RPi is a 70MB small Linux distribution which includes XBMC and things like Samba, Python, Mysql, AirPlay/Tunes support etc...):

http://openelec.tv/news/item/235-openelec-on-raspberry-pi-our-first-arm-device-supported

"Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center, or OpenELEC for short, is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into a complete XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot as fast as possible and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes."

Not my first use. It'll be plugged into the TV, but I already have a decent media player so have no interest in using the Raspi as one. I'll be using it for its intended purpose - as a programming playground.