I remember a few years ago buying a Firecore software license that ran on the 1st gen Apple TV. What was nice about that was you got the whole original Apple setup plus a lot of extras. I do remember that it ran XBMC. I’m just wondering if OSMC will run under Firecore? Probably not since it’s a whole separate boot os image. But I want to ask anyway, if there is such a version. I do realize that there are a lot fewer Firecore customers. I have no idea how many 1st gen Apple TV owners are out there. I was very impressed with Firecore at the time. The only thing that was discouraging was that they dropped support rather quickly and didn’t continue to modify the apps on the 1st gen Apple TV.
The FireCore project was a patchstick which installed XBMC on the original Apple TV operating system, which was known as Frontrow. It was essentially a tool which booted Linux, mounted the Apple TV filesystem on the disk, and installed some applications and a launcher. There were three patchstick’s around at the time: FireCore, Patchstick.ca, and atvusb-creator (which was free, and worked on by Scott Davilla, a couple of others, and myself).
When CrystalHD came out, I discovered that performance was best under Linux. The OS X version on the Apple TV was dated, and had a lot of overhead. Crystalbuntu was the first Linux distro for AppleTV with CrystalHD acceleration, and OSMC is the successor.
In short: Firecore was a tool that boted in to Linux and installed some OS X apps, but kept the underlying Apple frontrow operating system, OSMC is a full operating system in its own regard. OSMC will receive regular updates, but Firecore have stopped releasing updates. The current OSMC releas can be run off a USB stick, which means you do not need to hose your existing Firecore setup should you wish to revert.