Introducing the init programs
The three init programs you are most likely to encounter in embedded devices are BusyBox init
, System V init
, and systemd
. Buildroot offers all three with BusyBox init
as the default. The Yocto Project lets you choose between System V init
and systemd
with System V init
as the default. While Yocto’s tiny distribution ships with BusyBox init
, most other distro layers do not.
The following table gives some metrics to compare the three:
Metric |
BusyBox init |
System V init |
systemd |
Complexity |
Low |
Medium |
High |
Bootup speed |
Fast |
Slow ... |