This page is is part of my embedded system notes.

Host Platform Selection

The choice of hardware platform is one of preference rather that necessity. For a long time, many vendors only released software that ran on Microsoft Windows. If you did not run Windows, you could not use the software. While there are still many closed source solutions that are restricted to Microsoft Windows, these notes are focused on open source solutions.

The three primary platforms are:

Microsoft Windows

It used to be that Microsoft windows was the dominant platform

MacOS

Many people love the MacOS user experience, but when it came to software tools that ran on MacOS, it was slim pickings. Luckily, many dedicated people have taken the effort to get the open source software running on MacOS, so it is nearly as hard as it used to be.

Linux

My preferred platform is Linux. This used to be the underdog platform, but now there is plenty of solutions that run on Linux.