[nrdvana]

Try s6 or runit, and mdev from busybox. Mdev is not a "full featured" udev replacement, but that's sort of the point. It does just enough to get the job done and is extensible with scripts.

If you want to do the size of embedded where this matters, you also probably want a smaller libc like musl, and then buildroot and busybox are your friends.