"Embedded" is a pretty wide spectrum these days - some is pretty close to an RPi, some is much closer to classic embedded systems. The primary drivers are a) h

"Embedded" is a pretty wide spectrum these days - some is pretty close to an RPi, some is much closer to classic embedded systems. The primary drivers are a) how much processing do you need to do? If it's lots, why not run Linux underneath since you need a relatively beefy processor anyway, and b) how cost-sensitive is the product? If it's not very high volume, the speed of development you can get by developing on top of Linux instead of bare metal or an RTOS is likely to outweigh the COGS difference.