Why not? A full windows environment (though not really, because these things run what’s called the kiosk mode) can run on cheap SBCs and gives you a ton of hardware and software flexibility, and is also pretty convenient. It’s very commonly used for very good reasons.
I can understand it from the perspective of the developers who need to implement all this crazy tracking/advertising/graphics functionality, but imo a vending machine should only do three things:
Let me see what is available (preferably using glass)
Accept payment
Give me what I paid for
Vending machines have done this for decades without requiring an operating system. Keep it simple!
You could make logistics simpler by giving these things networking capacity so you can remotely track their stock and cash levels.
If your software needs to run on multiple different device configurations, you can simplify development and deployment by letting the OS handle a lot of the low level stuff.
In other words, a simpler machine is not necessarily going to be simpler to operate for the company.
OS is a specific distribution, so like a Debian is the full fledged OS.
So just write your inventory inside the file, and bind the vending machine keys to it, and ignore 99% of the OS. The coin slot I would expect runs its own validations.
As if Linux based vending machines aint a full fledged OS even with a minimal installation?
This aint embedded.
Yes of course Linux is a fully fledged OS, my point was a vending machine should not need any OS, my bad if I didnt make that clear
Why not? A full windows environment (though not really, because these things run what’s called the kiosk mode) can run on cheap SBCs and gives you a ton of hardware and software flexibility, and is also pretty convenient. It’s very commonly used for very good reasons.
TIL about windows kiosk mode!
I can understand it from the perspective of the developers who need to implement all this crazy tracking/advertising/graphics functionality, but imo a vending machine should only do three things:
Vending machines have done this for decades without requiring an operating system. Keep it simple!
Simple in what way?
You could make logistics simpler by giving these things networking capacity so you can remotely track their stock and cash levels.
If your software needs to run on multiple different device configurations, you can simplify development and deployment by letting the OS handle a lot of the low level stuff.
In other words, a simpler machine is not necessarily going to be simpler to operate for the company.
No, Linux is a kernel.
OS is a specific distribution, so like a Debian is the full fledged OS.
So just write your inventory inside the file, and bind the vending machine keys to it, and ignore 99% of the OS. The coin slot I would expect runs its own validations.
Linux Standard Base is full fledges OS then