No firmware for linux boxes is perfect. This is an open source code. However, some Enigma2 authors have finally joined a common "alliance". And that's the main thing.
Hey imagine replacing the first sentence with "Linux is not perfect", and then also replacing "Enigma2" with "Linux" in the second sentence...
I have heard this story before. The main weakness of a Linux based system is its own strength. The flexibility of these systems comes with a price. It allows any idiot to create his own "distro" and act like a hacker wannabe. It's sad, but true. How many distros are there out there anyway?... 3000? 4000? Let's not stop creating new distros until we make it to 100,000 and then let's only use 2% of them. Brilliant idea! Or not... That time can be better used to further develop one of the major Linux distros instead of creating 100,000:th distro for the sole purpose of selfpromotion.
The story of Enigma2 is not too different from Linux systems in general. One guy creates it, another guy copies it, a third guy pawns it and makes a profit out of it, a fifth guy clones it and makes a profit while giving nothing back to the original project. So on and so forth. Very simplified version! But that's how it usually goes.
Sorry, but people are not mentally ready for the age of free and open source software.
The problem with DM500-HD is that it is already very old.
Old? Age has nothing to do with it. It's a Linux box. It can run for many decades to come. The problem is its limited hardware. But that limitation was there from the beginning. It did not come with age. It has only 8 MB of Flash memory and 128 MB RAM if I recall correctly. That's very little. So we can't run Windows on it. But we can run Linux on it.
The main problem is that the so called Linux programmers have lost their touch. They no longer take it as an interesting challenge to make a piece of hardware with very limited resources run on Linux. The beefier the hardware, the easier their day is. They just want to click a button and be done with it. Where is the fun in that?
For example, OpenATV develops firmware for Dreambox, but not for the old DM500-HD.
Like I said, they have lost the touch. They no longer see it as a worthy challenge. What we need is Xfce equivalent for Engima2 boxes and it should be no problem to run it on DM500 HD.
Also, there is no OpenATV image for DM500-HD, but OpenPLi image yes exists (at least partially).
What does "partially" mean?
It either exists... or it doesn't... unless you're a house cat and your master is Erwin Schrödinger.
Lastly, does either OpenATV or OpenPLi offer any more HDMI CEC options for the DM500 HD than what is available with official Dreambox images?