What's the difference between Linux desktop and Embedded Linux
The biggest difference is that Embedded Linux embedding for Flutter doesn't use GTK/GDK and X11 at all. Flutter desktop for Linux uses X11 and GTK/GDK. On the other hand, Flutter for Embedded Linux uses Wayland or DRM backends without GTK/GDK.
Because requirements for embedded systems are not equal desktop one. For example, as I mentioned, Flutter desktop for Linux uses GTK/GDK and X11. These libraries require a lot of dependent libraries. In addition, in embedded use cases, GTK/GDK isn't always necessary, and CPU, physical memory, storages in embedded products are generally more limited than desktops. Therefore, we don’t want to install libraries that are not used as much as possible.
As a side note, we initially thought about sharing the source code with the desktop version but concluded that it was difficult. The source files of the Flutter desktop strongly dependent on GTK/GDK. Therefore, we couldn't share the source files to unuse GTK.