@Sjamesparsons Before FarmBot OS, we actually did run FarmBot software as a Linux program on Rasbperry Pi OS (“Raspbian” at the time).
It had a number of problems and we ultimately fixed the issue in October 2016 by switching to a single distribution image:
- SD Cards would go corrupt. It was rare for a FarmBot to stay online for more than 30 days.
- Software updates would sometimes lead to system outages or strange runtime issues that were difficult to control. We could not be certain that the software would continue to run consistently after running a software update and sometimes it would not.
- Installing FarmBot as a program (rather than a monolithic SD Card image) was extremely difficult for non-technical users. Even for an advanced user, setup was still very time-consuming because you needed to configure the base OS and then the FarmBot.
The current version of the OS uses Buildroot, which is a pretty common industry practice for IoT. Nearly every commercial hardware project runs Buildroot (or Yocto, a similar alternative) while I am not aware of any commercial projects based on a desktop Linux distro. They might be out there, but they are definitely not the industry norm.