SkiffOS: Minimal Cross-compiled Linux for Embedded Containers

SkiffOS is a config package system for the Buildroot OS cross-compiler.

• Run any distribution anywhere: decouples hardware support from user distro environments.
• Reliable: minimal read-only host system for unbreakable boot-ups and over-the-air updates.
• Reproducible: offline builds, pinned package versions, source-controlled custom configs.

Configuration packages are merged together to configure the system:

• SKIFF_CONFIG=pi/4,core/debian - run Debian desktop on a Raspberry Pi 4.
• SKIFF_CONFIG=odroid/xu4,core/fedora - run Fedora desktop on a Odroid XU4.
• SKIFF_CONFIG=virt/qemu,custom/config - run a custom config in a Qemu VM.

There is a project template you can use for version-controlled customizations.

Linux devices have varying requirements for kernel, firmware, and other hardware support packages. SkiffOS decouples this support from the containerized environments. The containers are portable across devices with the same CPU architecture, while ordinary OS images (Board Support Packages) are not.

Supports any Linux-compatible computer, ranging from RPi, Odroid, NVIDIA Jetson, to Desktop PCs, Laptops (i.e. Apple MacBook), Phones, Cloud VMs, and even Web Browsers.

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This release corresponds to Buildroot 2023.11.

Fixes and improvements:

• buildroot: update to upstream (64b6a3e5)
• buildroot: security fixes to some package downloads
• configs-base: update kernel to 6.6.5 (afce775f)
• fix(scripts): Add error handling to buildroot setup (4372c0b7)
• configs-base: bump binutils to 2.41.x (c23a3b52)
• skiff/core: bump version to v1.11.0 (d52987ce)
• intel/desktop: improve push_image.bash detection (19534ee3)

Full Changelog: https://github.com/skiffos/SkiffOS/compare/2023.08.2...2023.11