Best Linux distribution for an embedded device.

Hi All,

We are trying to port a firmware for a network video recorder from ARM to Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J1900 (Quad Core). The ARM had a very old version of linux 2.6 kernel. We are looking some new linux distributions which would be best suitable for this device. The device supports upto 8 ethernet channels for IP Camera's, 2 usb ports and Alarm output ports.

I would really appreciate if you could share the thoughts on this. Please let me know in case if you need any further information from my side.

Regards,
Joey

Below might be worth looking at for your project.
(AntiX has a 'full', 'base', & 'core libre' version & is based on Debian, without systemd.)

AntiX - http://antix.mepis.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
TinyCore - http://www.tinycorelinux.net/welcome.html

Thanks fatmac..

I'll surely go through very detail in that link.

To name just a few Linux distros which can run on ARM architectures, provided they are compiled for it:

Debian, Ubuntu, Yocto, MINT, Arch, and Angstrom

There are plenty more.

Pick something new. I'd suggest you rewrite the embodiment of that code to update it only because 2.6 was a while ago. Although I'm sure a lot of it is probably just ready to compile even with current day kernels. I supposed I'd just get a kernel running on something like a Beagle or equivalent SOM board running ARM and then compile that project and see if it ran. Then attack any architectural concerns I'd had. Just some suggestions.

Consider going custom build instead of using a distro. Back in the day when I started using embedded Linux, there were no Linux distributions for ARM, only x86. There was no choice but to go custom. Heck, Buildroot was barely useable, so building every individual package was done one at a time: compiler, libraries, utilities, kernel, applications.

Now you have tools like Buildroot and Yocto. You can easily configure the kernel and root filesystem to have exactly what you need and with little extraneous baggage. You don't need (or want) a desktop environment in an embedded device.
Granted, the larger number of dependencies that you have (e.g. audio & video codecs/libraries) increases the chances of uncovering package incompatibilities, which is a primary benefit of a distro.

Regards

Hi All,

Thanks for the replies.

As suggested I tried both yocto and buildroot and I was able to build my own linux kernel with the custom features which I needed. But the majority of the people here prefer going with some Linux vendor who could take the pain of this customization and could give us a kernel with the specialization and requirement that we lay down.

I have been asked to explore such vendors. Apart from the drivers, license, cost and number of devices what would be the other factor which I would need to keep in mind when approaching a vendor?

Regards,
Joey