Linux Distributions for Embedded Development?

FirmWarez asks: "Time to put together a new Linux box. I'm an embedded systems guy. I need to support cross development for a number of embedded platforms, from tiny micro-controllers through Coldfire, ARM, and other embedded processors. Projects will range from 'for work' to putzing around with open sourced consumer gadgets. What Linux distribution would you choose and why?"

Comments

Keep it simple

[Cryptnotic]

Use the easiest and most up-to-date distro you can. I personally use Fedora Core 5 for cross-development, but RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Ubuntu or whatever is probably fine. You'll need to add (or build) your own cross-compilers and debuggers. Nothing comes with those tools out of the box. And generally for every target, there is generally a preferred toolchain and set of libraries. buildroot (http://buildroot.uclibc.org/) is very handy for building cross-toolchains, by the way.

Things that you'll want to install:
        minicom (a serial terminal emulator program)
        tftp server (for embedded systems to boot over the network)
        telnet (for things that don't include ssh)

        cross-toolchains (*-gcc) and cross-debuggers (*-gdb), you'll have to build these yourself, probably.

Then whatever development environment you want. I personally like using Eclipse with the C/C++ environment, since I don't need to manage makefiles or build scripts by hand and it can target native compiles as well as cross-compiling.