[tracker1]

It's used in a lot of embedded scenarios... and will really depend on your use case. The raspberry pi will need a lot more/better hardware support if Windows is going to be a viable option. Video support is poor, onboard audio and lan aren't yet supported.

It's somewhat cool, but will need much better hardware support, or higher end hardware depending on the purpose.

If you aren't targeting something with end-user interfaces or consistent display needs, Linux is generally a better bet, and you can pretty much use the same languages and tooling.

For embedding, about the only more painful use of linux is when you need a gui display, and even that can somewhat be worked around... testing and isolating updates is probably the larger cost multiplier vs. windows in terms of long term support.