On Fri, 2010-02-12 at 11:25 +0000, Mark Rogers wrote:
Has anyone played with a SheevaPlug or variant (TonidoPlug, for example)?
Arm CPU, USB and network connectivity, running Ubuntu-derivative on 512MB built in flash (with 512MB RAM), all in a "plug" design.
Interesting. I believe this is based on the Marvell Kirkwood SOC which includes the ARM processor, the same as the NAS I bought a couple of weeks back (a QNAP TS-419P).
Many of the devices run kernel 2.6.22 because, I think, Marvell produced a fork with some specific code for the Kirkwood. More recently support for the Kirkwood had been integrated into the kernel mainline and my NAS is now running 2.6.30.6.
Looks like they can be had in the UK (ie with UK plug) for just over £60 but with £30 shipping (and 2-3 week delay) from the US. I think I will probably get one to play with, so I don't know if anyone else wants to combine shipping.
Excluding the shipping that is around what my first ZX81 cost so given the ZX81 would have been bought in 1981 "in real terms" it is rather less.
But first off I'd like to know if anyone has played with one already. Obviously with it being Arm based there won't be many binary packes to install on it but the obvious suspects should cross-compile OK I would think. The obvious question is whether 512MB on-device storage is enough to achieve anything useful, but then I have relatively low aspirations anyway!
I did look round the Debian website but I can't see any mention of how many of the Debian packages are built for ARM. There are bound to be some that don't build on ARM but I would hope most would.
I have also been meaning to investigate the possibility of cross compiling for my NAS but I haven't had the time so far. If you beat me to it then please let us know what you had to install/build.
Regards, Steve.