[olug] low power linux device for light server

[Steven Susbauer]

On 11/7/10 6:37 PM, Eric P wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
> Did you ever receive your SheevaPlug? if(true)Care to share your
> experience w/it thus far?
>
> Thanks,
> Eric

I sure did, about a week after ordering. So far I have been very 
satisfied with it. I run a recompiled version of Arch Linux, called 
Plugbox Linux (http://plugapps.com) because I run Arch on my other 
computers and am very used to it. I didn't boot up the native Ubuntu 
that comes on it, but did not overwrite it either.

My set up consists of an 8gb SD card with /boot and /, and a hard drive 
in a USB enclosure which holds /etc /usr /var /tmp and /home on various 
btrfs subvolumes. My /boot and / are read only, and the SD card holds an 
/etc directory for booting (I hate using initrd) which then syncs up to 
the HD and is remounted (it periodically sends changes to the SD card's 
/etc if there are any).

I've got the whole system except /boot on btrfs and have had no issues 
with stability or data loss. I also haven't seen much of a performance hit.

I use it for torrents and hosting some basic services, as well as an 
always-on IRC connection. It also connects to my sixxs IPv6 tunnel and 
provides the firewall for that, as well as routing for the rest of the 
house. It hasn't missed a beat since I got it set up, have only had a 
few hiccups which were caused by me, such as a missing driver here and 
there in the kernel. Right now my uptime is low due to a new kernel 
build and moving it into the basement, but I had it up around 30 days 
before that.

The community is pretty good about sharing kernel configs and solving 
problems. For example the 2.6.36 kernel has a regression which prevents 
ethernet from running. The community was quick to send a patch to Linus, 
and also posting about it so users could patch their own kernels to fix 
the issue.