ꙮ honeycombOS 🍯 the IOTA Embedded Linux Distribution
honeycombOS is an Embedded Linux Distribution tailored for IOTA nodes, clients and Tangle related tools. It is mainly based on Poky, and it is built with tools from Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded.
honeycombOS is part of my work on meta-iota, supported by the IOTA Ecosystem Development Fund.
Each build is based on machine configurations from a specific OpenEmbedded BSP layer tailored for the board. This allows for better performance when compared to one-fits-all kinds of Distros such as DietPi, Armbian and Raspbian, which usually provide a single binary image for many different board versions (to ensure backwards compatibility).
For Raspberry Pis 3 and 4, honeycombOS is 64-bits compatible, which means RPi’s SoC 64bit architecture is fully taken advantage of and data is moved around faster.
- Raspberry Pi builds are available here:
https://github.com/iotaledger/meta-iota/releases - Useful information is available here:
https://github.com/iotaledger/meta-iota/wiki/honeycombOS - Instructions on how to build honeycombOS here:
https://github.com/iotaledger/meta-iota/wiki/BitBaking-honeycombOS
honeycombOS is meant to be as minimalist and light as possible, so all CPU power is used for Tangle related computations.
At the moment, honeycombOS only contains Hornet v0.3.0, a lightweight alternative to IOTA’s fullnode software IRI.
Future releases could also potentially include GoShimmer, Chronicle, and Bee, depending on community reception and requests.
honeycombOS is 100% cross-compiled from source, which means community feedback will drive improvements for next iterations. That includes (but not limited to) modifications to:
- kernel (adding or removing modules, statically or dynamically)
- system services
- partition layout
- tmpfs/ramfs
- on-board development tools
- package feed
Next step is to support Hornet as a systemd service by default, as well as Hornet plugins.
So far, honeycombOS has only been tested on the Raspberry Pi 3 and 4. However, it can be built for any board supported by OpenEmbedded. You can search for you board at the Machines section of the OpenEmbedded Layer Index. If you find your board there and you want to build honeycombOS for it, feel free to contact me:
- email: bernardo.araujo@iota.org
- discord: Bernardo [IF]#8478
