Distributions—Linux - Debian
Linux-Debian Installation Guide
Intel
®
I/O Processors
June 2005
Order Number: 306507001US
17
Distributions
6
There are numerous choices for the root file system or distribution.
Some distributions, such as Debian, are desktop-type distributions that have been ported to the
ARM processor family. These distributions will give much flexibility in terms of application
availability and an active developer community. These distributions will typically take a
reasonably large amount of disk space and will likely be inappropriate for installation into a flash
disk. Applications are typically distributed as precompiled binaries with little configuration of
optimization levels, etc.
Some distributions, such as the ucLinux distribution, are geared toward embedded projects with
limited storage space. These distributions can normally be tailored for an custom installation, and
will generally produce the smallest footprint file systems. They generally have a more limited
developer community, so they may require more custom work for a given task. The applications
here are typically compiled from scratch, and a lot of times they are cross-built from the IA Linux
host. This gives fine-grained control over optimization levels, etc.
