The last 12 month have been a „golden“ time of the upcomming embedded linux devices, but the custom OS’s offers some problems, you should know for projects:
- embedded PC’s like the ARM based pi2 / pi3 uses a own compiled OS
- not every known debian package is available
- not all compile scripts to rebuild are available on git
- slow performance can let you run into unuseable problems (heat, load, I/O), correct written scripts run into freezes without any error made by you!
- you should take time for a closer look at buying them
- calc the costs of non-x86 systems, later you cant often upgrade, cause embedded systems are not made for
- dealers take too much money for less performance!
- embedded devices can’t be grown up for additional precs like compression based on chips!
- embedded devices need less energy, but can hangup by load over 65%, cause no cooling
- the are made for learning and small control jobs
- for NAS / Server jobs take x86 m-atx / micro-atx, cause you can access easy full debian packages
- not all python + libs packages are available to run projects (example: acd_cli amazon cloud nas backup)
- current embedded pc livetime at multimedia usage may be 24month cause to much and faster changes
May be that the arm os package trees may grow up, then we can talk again, but current x86 is the cheapest way to build systems without stress! And you have always the reserve to buildin new things of hardware..