Plug computers

D. Hugh Redelmeier hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org
Mon Sep 27 17:53:41 UTC 2010


| From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| On Sun, Sep 26, 2010 at 12:44 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
| > <http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=27_357&item_id=031468>
| >  Currently $99.99 after $10 discount
| 
| That's pretty interesting...

Well, the NCIX sale price is more interesting :-)

| I'd rather run a "general purpose" distribution (e.g. - Debian) than a
| specialized one, as that allows the same tooling to work for both
| "real servers" and this, as a "itty bitty server."

Yeah.

The first thing I would do with this thing is flash a different OS.
Since that is fiddly, I haven't yet done this (or anything else) with
the Dockstars I scooped up.

Unfortunately, desktop distros probably won't fit: they don't like
having so little RAM and they generally don't understand "headless".

There are several open distros for these plug computers, as I
understand it.

- debian, perhaps.
  <http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Debian>

- openwrt
  <http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Creating_a_OpenWRT_image_for_SheevaPlug>

- plugbox linux, a variant of Arch Linux(!)
  <http://plugapps.com/index.php5?title=Portal:PlugBox_Linux>
  (This page explicitly mentions to Pogoplug and DockStar)

- several more listed on plugcomputer.org's wiki.  Some of the ports
  seem to appear underdeveloped

The choices of plug computer seem to range from Dockstar ($30 from
Future Shop, if you can find it) to OpenRD client <http://www.open-rd.org/>
(US$240 and up, as far as I can make out).  OpenRD is heads and
shoulders above the others, but the price is higher than I paid for my
Acer Revos which are quite a bit more capable.

| If I can use a conventional distribution, use etckeeper to backup
| configuration <http://joey.kitenet.net/code/etckeeper/>, and have a
| miniscule box (that burglars mightn't even realize was there! ;-)),
| and have some useful services running, that seems like a fine thing.

A close-enough-to-conventional distro looks possible but it might take
a fair bit of fiddling to get there.

The plugcomputer.org wiki looks like a marvelous resource.


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