DreamPlug plug computer

[Christopher Browne]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 10:10 AM,  <john.moniz-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I always struggle to figure out how the average guy could use these plug
> computers at home. For example, my Debian home server died. It was a P2 with
> 128MB RAM (maybe 256) and a 40GB drive. It was all I needed for a file, mail
> and print server.
>
> Would one of these plug computers be a good replacement? I love the small
> size and the low power consumption. Could I add an external drive and
> configure the unit for a similar server as before? Or is this the wrong
> application altogether?

I think that's the intent, though I, too, have found them a bit too
"wimpy" thus far, and a lot of that is how they're being sold.

They are surely plenty powerful enough to run Debian with a pretty
fair array of services.  They're pointedly *NOT* powerful enough (and
rather too headless!) to run the other typical "desktop" distributions
(e.g. - Ubuntu, RHAT, Centos, and such), with the consequence that the
vendors seem fixated on pushing them out with "embedded distributions"
that aren't nearly good enough.

Stick Debian on it, and it's easy enough to "apt-get upgrade" to keep
the device up to date with security patches and such, which, for this
purpose, is reasonably important.  And it's easy for me to add the 4
things that cbbrowne needs, and it's easy for you to add the 7
different things that you need, no muss or fuss.

Stick [My Random EmbedLinux] on it, and keeping it up to date depends
on the weakest link of a) vendor and b) whomever *actually* wrote [My
Random EmbedLinux].  And supposing I want Git and cfengine, and
they're not default packages, I may be compelled to build a
cross-compiling environment (that only ever half works) on the "bigger
server machine" that I rather wanted this to replace in the first
place...

A number of these "plugs" have acquired some support for installing
Debian, but the indications I see thus far are that it requires
jumping thru a few more hoops than leave me happy.

The TrimSlice looks pretty neat, though it might still suffer from the
same issues surrounding what gets sold.  And it doesn't really exist
until boxes are physically available at stores I'd shop at ;-).
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