A lot of it would depend on what your use case is. In this case the author needs an Elgato/Geniatech EyeTV stick and app for his purposes which isn't supported on Linux by the manufacturer. It might work, but it might also not be worth the hassle.

However, if you want something that plays media but doesn't (necessarily) also have to be able to receive regular terrestrial signal it shouldn't matter much beyond user preference and ease of installation/maintenance/debugging.

Those have been working for years very well under Linux, and see much use with MythTV etc. Vendor drivers are less likely to see long time support.

I bought one of those HDTV terrestrial sticks (RTL2832) for about $10. I use it for FM Radio, but I'd guess that would still work for TV on Linux?

Think Penguin sells a stick that's a bit pricier, but also presumably very easy to use with Linux: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/usb-tv-tuner-w-suppor...

There's also the Linux TV site that discusses the software side of things: https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/TV_Related_Software

it doesn't fit the original requirement as it is too large but when these discussions come up i feel obligated to mention silicon dust as well. http://www.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/

they make outboard tv tuners that will either do over-the-air or digital cable and stream wired or wirelessly. one model even transcodes to h.264 and they publish plugins for kodi and plex along with working with a variety of commercial and open source apps. it was my preferring tuning device with both myth tv on linux and Microsoft media center until i ditched cable entirely.

There may be streaming services that, for various DRM reasons, aren't supported in Linux. It sucks, but that's the lay of the land. Netflix is supported in Linux, but how about, say, the streaming season package for your favorite sports team? Who knows, but I'd wager a lot of them won't work.

Performance. For example: hardware acceleration of movie decoding is (was?) a bit of hit or miss with Linux, while it usually "just works" on Windows. Win is also faster that Mac OS in this regard: mainly due to certain APIs being not available for 3rd party software. The movie might be smooth in QuickTime, but VLC or Kodi will stutter.

At least that was a case few years ago, when I was checking how to play a full HD mkv file on my Mac Mini.

I use Linux on my media PC. I actually switched to Windows for a little while, because it was preinstalled. I only switched to Linux because I wanted to SSH into the machine, run OpenVPN, duckdns updater, home automation scripts, etc. I was just more comfortable in Linux.

I run Plex Server, Plex Home Theater, Spotify desktop app (in the background), and EmulationStation. I've been very happy with it so far.

It would be nice if I could get Netflix integrated, but I just use my phone and a Chromecast for that.

Windows is less maintenance (ie: just works)

Sometimes Linux might take more effort to set up (but in my experience it's quicker to install and set up [ed: than windows] on hardware that's a year or two old - since volunteers / third party developers usually do the work of supporting it, not the vendor). But once set up, Linux requires much less maintenance than windows. That's been true for years (and AFAIK that's also true for BSDs).

[ed: part of the reason setup and maintenance of Linux is easier is thanks to powerful, integrated package management systems, like apt]

I'm going to have to call that out...Windows 10 updates have bricked two different Dell laptops for me (Anniversary update did for the first, the second started throwing admin errors following an update then BSOD on reboot; neither case did roll back or restore points work - and that's in the last three months). I'm not saying Linux is painless, but neither is Windows.