At my work, we currently control large piping skids with PLCs. The PLCs are total overkill in reality, with what we need them to do, we could get away with much much less. We want to move towards a much smaller, cost-effective solution, and so I'm looking at embedded boards (SBCs). There are waaaaaaaay too many to choose from, and I've got no idea how I'm going to pick one over the other. I know a few of you here are in the embedded programming world, I was wondering if one of you could comment.
I don't even really have much information to offer up. I only need probably 128 MB of RAM (if that), something in the 100s of MHz, an ethernet port, and a USB port. I already have a USB I/O board picked out which should work anywhere Debian Linux is supported.
I just don't even have the first clue. I could pick something now and it'd work I'm sure, but I'm not sure it'd be the best choice out of the sea of choices out there.
Edit: this may seem pointless, i.e. how can someone give me an answer without more information, so I guess at this point it'd be helpful if someone who uses embedded boards could come in and say "our company uses X because Y"