How not to sell embedded Linux

How not to sell embedded Linux

Posted May 6, 2008 22:29 UTC (Tue) by caitlinbestler (subscriber, #32532)
Parent article: How not to sell embedded Linux

The real issue is what sort of kernel your embedded application needs.

If you need a very trim very secure kernel that only provides a few services and does not need to support very many devices then trying to track kernel.org just does not make sense. The mainline is just not focused on your needs.

On the other hand, if you your embedded product is really more of a specialized standalone server that benefits from running all sorts of current networking code then trying to keep your hand-crafted mini-kernel and its supporting stack up to date does not make much sense.

When Mr. Ready first entered the embedded kernel business, the typical embedded kernel could not afford the overhead of a general purpose networking stack, and the networking requirements of embedded devices were simple and straight forward.

For many projects the trade-offs have changed radically since then.

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I'd argue exactly the opposite.

if you need a trim, secure kernel with minimal features enabled, definantly track kernel.org.
with a minimal config it's far easier to test a new kernel and any security patches that come
out you can more easily apply (assuming that they are at all relavent to things that you have
turned on in your kernel)

it's when you want the 'everything and the kitchen sink, running on any available hardware'
that you want to think about backing off and running a distro provided kernel (so that they
can do a lot of the work maintaining it)