The lightest OS for UP! Boards.

Mikolaj

Hi,
What's the lightest (in terms of CPU power) OS for the UP! boards out there ?
I want no GUI, just headless access to a command line via SSH and programmable access to all GPIO pins (incl. all interfaces).
Btw. Are there Python libraries for the board ?

Til

Oops, didn't read your post carefully enough...

Mikolaj

That was quick. Over 2 months and no answer. Is there anything lighter than Arch ?

Dan O'Donovan

In terms of something that is ready to run out-of-the-box, with GPIO support, I'm not aware of anything right now that's available.

If you wanted to create something yourself, Yocto is one option to consider. It is a toolset that allows you to create your own distro with fine-grained control over what it contains, so you can create something very small and light with that. But its not a trivial toolset to use.

Another option to consider is to look for a lightweight variant of Ubuntu (or Debian). I typically use ubilinux or Lubuntu myself, but that's more relevant if you want to use a desktop environment. That said, you could perhaps uninstall the desktop-related packages and effectively trim it down to a headless setup - ubilinux might be a good place to start there because it has support for installation and booting using a serial console.

Ubuntu Server edition might also be worth a look as its designed to run headless, afaik (haven't tried it myself).

Michiel Bakker

Hi Nick,

I don't know what the 'lightest' OS is, but I've run both Ubuntu server and LXLE (which does have a GUI though). I am also wondering what you've tried so far, what works/worked the best for you?

Kind regards,

mvbakker