minor issues with FAQ.md

[RichMorin]

I noticed a couple of minor issues with FAQ.md:

The page says "Is something wrong?Edit this page on GitHub".
It needs some white space, as: "Is something wrong? Edit this page on GitHub".

It would be nice to have a section of the FAQ summarize the versions of Linux which are most frequently used with Nerves.

-r

[jjcarstens]

The page says "Is something wrong?Edit this page on GitHub".
It needs some white space, as: "Is something wrong? Edit this page on GitHub".

Can you submit a PR to the docs with the edit?

It would be nice to have a section of the FAQ summarize the versions of Linux which are most frequently used with Nerves.

Linux versions for each system are provided in Systems > Compatibility section and linked to the system's hex version. You'll be able to see some breakdown there. Maybe it is worth adding a quick note to the FAQ pointing to that chart?

[RichMorin]

Can you submit a PR to the docs with the edit?

I would have submitted a patch for the white space issue, but I can't figure out why the newline in the HTML isn't being turned into a space. ELI5?

Linux versions for each system are provided in Systems > Compatibility section and linked to the system's hex version. You'll be able to see some breakdown there. Maybe it is worth adding a quick note to the FAQ pointing to that chart?

This is useful information, but it isn't what I was trying to find out. Are Nerves releases simply based on the Linux kernel or are they derived from particular distributions (e.g., Debian)? If it's the latter, where can I find out which Linux distros are being adapted for use with Nerves?

By way of explanation, I understand that the Nerves build is controlled by a Mix script that indicates which (Elixir, Erlang, etc.) packages should be included. However, I'm concerned that Linuxish programs I might wish to include may expect facilities that are only provided by certain Linux distros.

[jjcarstens]

Nerves is not based off any Linux distribution. It is only the Linux kernel and so the Linux source by version would be the place to look for information. It uses Buildroot and cross-compilation to build an embedded linux system that runs the BEAM.

Each nerves_system_* would handle anything extra past that independently (such as device trees for specific hardware pinouts, integrated chips, etc). For example, nerves_system_bbb uses a set of patches and options for the Linux kernel maintained by Robert Nelson to support the BeagleBone setup. Similarly, nerves_system_rpi* systems use a stripped down version of the Raspberry PI Linux Kernel, but not the Raspberry OS distro

But, that is not required. A user could simply use a specified Linux kernel version with all the basic options to just get an image installed to a device (in fact, this is what nerves_system_x86_64 does). A no-option, base image gets you booted to IEx, but the user/maintainer of the system would need to figure out what is needed for that particular target hardware to enable things like GPIO pins, integrated WiFi device, etc.