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  1. Stackups
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  5. Buildroot vs Ubuntu

Buildroot vs Ubuntu

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Stacks80.4K
Followers59.1K
Votes468
Buildroot
Buildroot
Stacks26
Followers32
Votes0
GitHub Stars3.2K
Forks2.7K

Buildroot vs Ubuntu: What are the differences?

Buildroot and Ubuntu are two popular Linux-based operating systems that are used for different purposes. While Buildroot is a minimalistic and lightweight build system that allows users to create embedded Linux systems from scratch, Ubuntu is a fully-featured and user-friendly operating system designed for general-purpose computing. Despite both being Linux-based, there are several key differences between Buildroot and Ubuntu.
  1. Customizability: Buildroot offers a higher level of customizability compared to Ubuntu. With Buildroot, users can tailor their embedded Linux systems to specific requirements by selecting only the necessary components and optimizing them for their target hardware. On the other hand, Ubuntu provides a pre-configured set of packages and applications, which may not be as flexible or customizable for specific use cases.

  2. Package Management: Ubuntu utilizes a package management system called Advanced Packaging Tool (APT), which provides an extensive repository of pre-compiled software packages that can be easily installed, updated, and removed. In contrast, Buildroot uses a different approach where packages are built from source during the build process. This allows users to have more control over the versions and configurations of the software components, but it requires additional effort for maintaining and updating packages.

  3. System Size: Buildroot focuses on minimizing the system size to fit into resource-constrained embedded devices. It allows users to create a minimalistic system containing only the necessary components, resulting in a smaller footprint. On the other hand, Ubuntu is a full-fledged operating system with a comprehensive set of applications and features, which translates to a larger system size compared to Buildroot.

  4. Ease of Use: Ubuntu is renowned for its user-friendly interface and ease of use, making it suitable for general-purpose computing. It provides a desktop environment with intuitive graphical interfaces, a vast array of applications, and comprehensive documentation for beginners. Buildroot, on the other hand, requires advanced knowledge of Linux and embedded systems as it primarily targets developers and engineers who have expertise in building custom Linux systems from scratch.

  5. Community Support: Ubuntu has a large and active community of users and developers, which results in extensive community support. Users can readily find help, tutorials, and online forums for troubleshooting and learning. Buildroot also has a community, but due to its niche use case and advanced nature, the community may be smaller and the available resources may not be as abundant as those for Ubuntu.

  6. Target Audience: Buildroot and Ubuntu target different audiences. Buildroot is intended for embedded systems developers who need to create customized and optimized Linux systems for resource-constrained devices. In contrast, Ubuntu targets a broader audience, including casual users, developers, and enterprises, aiming to provide a user-friendly and versatile operating system for general-purpose computing.

In summary, Buildroot and Ubuntu differ in terms of customizability, package management, system size, ease of use, community support, and target audience. Buildroot offers high customizability, requires manual package management, focuses on system size optimization, requires advanced knowledge, has a smaller community, and targets embedded systems developers. On the other hand, Ubuntu provides a pre-configured system, utilizes a package management tool, has a larger system size, offers user-friendly interfaces, has extensive community support, and targets a broader audience.

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Advice on Ubuntu, Buildroot

Jerome/Zen
Jerome/Zen

Software Engineer

Aug 2, 2020

Decided

Global familiarity, free, widely used, and as a debian distro feels more comfortable when rapidly switching between local macOS and remote command lines.

CentOS does boast quite a few security/stability improvements, however as a RHEL-based distro, differs quite significantly in the command line and suffers from slightly less frequent package updates. (Could be a good or bad thing depending on your use-case and if it is public facing)

271k views271k
Comments
Simon
Simon

Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact

Mar 7, 2020

Decided

At the moment of the decision, my desktop was the primary place I did work. Due to this, I can't have it blow up on me while I work. While Arch is interesting and powerful, Ubuntu offers (at least for me) a lot more stability and lets me focus on other things than maintaining my own OS installation.

299k views299k
Comments
Govind
Govind

Aug 5, 2020

Decided

Ubuntu is much more faster over Windows and helps to get software and other utilities easier and within a short span of time compared to Windows.

Ubuntu helps to get robustness and resiliency over Windows. Ubuntu runs faster than Windows on every computer that I have ever tested. LibreOffice (Ubuntu's default office suite) runs much faster than Microsoft Office on every computer that I have ever tested.

270k views270k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Buildroot
Buildroot

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

It is a tool that simplifies and automates the process of building a complete Linux system for an embedded system, using cross-compilation.

-
Embedded system; Embedded Linux; Cross-compilation; Toolchain generator; Root filesystem; Linux kernel ; PowerPC; Board Support Package
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
3.2K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
2.7K
Stacks
80.4K
Stacks
26
Followers
59.1K
Followers
32
Votes
468
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 230
    Free to use
  • 96
    Easy setup for testing discord bot
  • 57
    Gateway Linux Distro
  • 54
    Simple interface
  • 9
    Don't need driver installation in most cases
Cons
  • 5
    Demanding system requirements
  • 4
    Adds overhead and unnecessary complexity over Debian
  • 2
    Snapd installed by default
  • 1
    Systemd
No community feedback yet
Integrations
No integrations available
Linux
Linux
GStreamer
GStreamer

What are some alternatives to Ubuntu, Buildroot?

Debian

Debian

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

Arch Linux

Arch Linux

A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

Fedora

Fedora

Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.

AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation

You can use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create your own templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run your application. You don’t need to figure out the order in which AWS services need to be provisioned or the subtleties of how to make those dependencies work.

Linux Mint

Linux Mint

The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.

CentOS

CentOS

The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.

Linux

Linux

A clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

CoreOS

CoreOS

It is designed for security, consistency, and reliability. Instead of installing packages via yum or apt, it uses Linux containers to manage your services at a higher level of abstraction. A single service's code and all dependencies are packaged within a container that can be run on one or many machines.

Packer

Packer

Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image. It embraces modern configuration management by encouraging you to use automated scripts to install and configure the software within your Packer-made images.

Gentoo Linux

Gentoo Linux

It is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need.

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