RSSMarvell SheevaPlug crams Linux PC into a power adapter
By Tim Conneally | Published February 25, 2009, 9:45 AM
Marvell yesterday debuted its Plug Computing initiative, which seeks to strip the always-on PC down to the smallest form possible while still retaining its functionality. The result is the SheevaPlug development platform, a 1.2GHz Sheeva CPU with 512MB of Flash memory and 512MB of DRAM jammed into an oversized Glade Plug-in. It's compatible with most Linux distributions running the 2.6 kernel.
The unit has a gigabit ethernet port and one USB port and is meant to be hooked up to the home's main router and network storage device. From there, Marvell says it consumes one tenth the power of a PC being used as a home media server.
It's the same idea we saw at CES with the PogoPlug. In fact, the PogoPlug is based on Marvell's reference model. You plug a regular external hard drive into the device, and it becomes an intelligent network drive that's also remotely accessible.
As someone who's employed various highly unsuccesful and far more expensive solutions for remote home server access, the $79 Pogoplug looks too good to be true. Ctera's Cloudplug is a similarly designed solution also utilizing Marvell's plug design.
These computers are akin to The Brain That Wouldn't Die -- there's no real way to interact directly with one of them, since the have no graphical output and no space for peripherals. But they can turn an otherwise dumb storage device into a network connected solution with a single plug.
this looks pretty sweet. too bad it doesnt suite my needs
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|"there's no real way to interact directly with one of them"
Except ssh? Command line much?
If you cannot type I am sure you could use webmin or some other browser based control panel to administer your little mini server.
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|"Interacting directly" may not be the best way to put it, but it is correct; you need another computer/terminal to handle the i/o. However, that doesn't make much difference in a Linux/Unix/BSD system where you can do anything via the command line.
PogoPlug appears to have a built in web server. They only mention using it for access to an attached storage device, but there are probably some admin tools as well.
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|linguistic failure on my part. I was trying to efficiently say this isn't meant to be a personal computer.
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