Lifecycle of operating systems versus your solution
Ensuring that the support window of time for the physical hardware that your solution will be built upon aligns with the support window and availability of the Linux distribution you have chosen is crucial.
Changing an operating system on an appliance in the field is an effort in pain and suffering. It’s generally a safe assumption that your support team will not have direct access to any system sold that’s in use by a customer in the field. Unless your offering is supported as a remotely managed service for the end-customer, it’s common for embedded systems to have no communication with the mothership (i.e., its manufacturer), except for those that are allowed to acquire their updates from the vendor automatically online.
Changing an operating system is like performing a fresh installation. Generally, we try to keep this out of the end-customers' view, as if they are involved and have access during...
