With iMedia Embedded Linux distro iTuner introduces a new category of linux distro: an hybrid between a small embedded linux distribution and full featured linux distribution. While not having the restrictions of an embedded linux distro (like small range of hardware/architectures, non standard libraries,filesystems) it's still much more lighter in disk space and even on cpu and memory usage than a full featured linux distribution aimed at low power embedded mini-ITX systems . Derived from our MediaboxOS streaming server and encoders platform we produced iMedia distribution which has the possibility to run on any hardware as a full linux distribution. A minimum install of Fedora Linux distribution is about 400Mb while iMedia is about 8Mb.

This minimal install contains:

Filesystem

• custom EXT3 with jounaling capabilities tuned for Compact Flash operations.

Kernel

• 2.6.x kernel
• lastest iMedia distribution has 2.6.20 kernel.
• kernel image include and supports: APM/ACPI, netfilter, traffic shaper/QoS, realtek, ne2000, sis900, via network drivers, IRDA, I2C, video4linux, ext2, usb.
• everything else is available as modules in separate packages.
• for a sample config file Click Here.

Software

• most used utils and needed daemons are already installed: bash, busybox, tinylogin, gnu-utils, modutils, setpci, udhcpc, nano, crond, inetd, syslogd
• last iMedia distribution has 2.4.23 kernel.
• kernel image include and supports: APM/ACPI, netfilter, traffic shaper/QoS, realtek, ne2000, sis900, via network drivers, IRDA, I2C, video4linux, ext2, usb.
• glibc 2.5.x
• ncurses.
• libstdc++.
• for a complete listing of the files minimal install Click Here.

This will fit nicely in a 16 Mb Compact Flash Card leaving space for user applications or optional packages. The table bellow does a small comparisation between a full featured linux distribution installed with minimal default settings and our hybrid embedded ditribution. (Fedora Core 5 was used to compare the distros)

	Fedora Core 5	iMedia 5
Size on disk	600+ Mb	10Mb
FileSystem (default)	EXT3	EXT3
Glibc version	2.5	2.5
Kernel version	2.6.18	2.6.20
Package system	Yes	Yes
Package management	Yes	No
PAM	Yes	No

Using same libc and kernel as most distributions ensures the capability to run applications from an existing linux installation to an iMedia distro without the need to recompile due to libc/kernel missmatch.You can copy your application to iMedia and run it.