SheevaPlug
Encyclopedia
The SheevaPlug is a "plug computer
Plug computer
A plug computer is a small form factor server for use in the home or office. Compared to their PC-based counterparts, plug computers are lower cost, consume less power, often do not have a video card, and are intended to be powered up at all times...

" designed to allow standard computing features in as small a space as possible.

One of the first such computers on the market, the device has a 1.2 GHz Marvell
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell is an American producer of storage, communications and consumer semiconductor products.Founded in 1995, Marvell Technology Group Ltd. has operations worldwide and approximately 5,700 employees. Marvell’s U.S. operating subsidiary is based in Santa Clara, California and Marvell has...

 Kirkwood 6281 ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...

-compatible CPU (aka Feroceon). The operating system is Ubuntu Linux
Ubuntu (operating system)
Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...

  version 9.04. A software development kit for the platform is also available.

Commercial products

The following commercial products are known to be based on the SheevaPlug platform:
  • CTERA CloudPlug by CTERA Networks, a plug computer providing online backup at local disk speeds and overlays a file sharing service.
  • TonidoPlug from CodeLathe, a SheevaPlug-based device that runs Tonido
    Tonido
    Tonido is a home server NAS software. Once installed on a computer, Tonido software makes that computer's files available remotely through the browser from the WAN. No port forwarding is required, as data is transmitted through Tonido's servers. Users can switch to not using Tonido's servers by...

     home server and NAS
    Nas
    Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...

     software, and allows users to access, share and sync files and media.
  • Pogoplug by Cloud Engines, a device that lets users access their files at home over the Internet
    Internet
    The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

     without leaving a PC on.
  • Seagate FreeAgent DockStar, a variant of the Pogoplug.
  • GuruPlug
    GuruPlug
    GuruPlug is a compact and low power Linux Plug computer. It is intended to be a device that could act as a web server, a printing server or any other network service...

    , a SheevaPlug with additional connectivity options.
  • DreamPlug, similar to a GuruPlug+
  • The PylonPlug by Equelex. A one interface OpenWrt
    OpenWrt
    OpenWrt is a Linux distribution primarily targeted at routing on embedded devices. It comprises a set of about 2000 software packages, installed and uninstalled via the opkg package management system. OpenWrt can be configured using the command-line interface of BusyBox ash, or the web interface...

     device that when used in conjunction with a 802.1q capable network switch
    Network switch
    A network switch or switching hub is a computer networking device that connects network segments.The term commonly refers to a multi-port network bridge that processes and routes data at the data link layer of the OSI model...

    , can be used as a Multi-WAN network router. Its operating system is OpenWrt
    OpenWrt
    OpenWrt is a Linux distribution primarily targeted at routing on embedded devices. It comprises a set of about 2000 software packages, installed and uninstalled via the opkg package management system. OpenWrt can be configured using the command-line interface of BusyBox ash, or the web interface...

     Linux
  • BarracudaDrive Web Server for the SheevaPlug.
  • The sipJack from pbxnsip
    Pbxnsip
    Pbxnsip is a software implementation of a telephone private branch exchange produced by a company of the same name. Like any PBX, it allows attached telephones to make calls to one another, and to connect to other telephone services including the public switched telephone network and Voice over...

     is a Sheeva kit-based plug computer and provides VoIP services and PBX features.
  • The WeatherHub2 by Ambient Weather
    Ambient weather
    Ambient Weather is an Arizona based weather station distributor and software manufacturer that specializes in customized solutions and products for the home and office, industry, schools, resorts, government and the media....

    . A server which collects data from a weather station
    Weather station
    A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for observing atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind...

     and uploads data to web pages or other Internet services.
  • The GeNiJack by NETCOR. An endpoint for end-to-end network performance assessment.
  • BACnet Gateway by Kara Systems , a MBus, Modbus and OneWire Gateway which represents a BACNet Device
  • Pwnie Express is a Computer Security tool
  • AvaGigE by Avantes, USB to Ethernet converter which supports the connection of Avantes spectrometers to an Ethernet network. AvaGigE product page


Other operating system ports and stacks

  • FreedomBox
    FreedomBox
    FreedomBox is a community project to develop, design and promote personal servers running free software for distributed social networking, email and audio/video communications...

    , for secured, encrypted and fully decentralized networking based on Debian
  • Mark Gillespie has created scripts to build and install Debian Lenny and Squeeze onto either the internal NAND or SD
    Secure Digital
    Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...

     card
  • There is an ARM port of Fedora
    Fedora (operating system)
    Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...

     which can be installed on the SheevaPlug
  • Raúl Porcel has managed to run Gentoo
    Gentoo Linux
    Gentoo Linux is a computer operating system built on top of the Linux kernel and based on the Portage package management system. It is distributed as free and open source software. Unlike a conventional software distribution, the user compiles the source code locally according to their chosen...

     on the plug and published an instruction on how to do so.
  • Stuart Winter has a working Slackware
    Slackware
    Slackware is a free and open source Linux-based operating system. It was one of the earliest operating systems to be built on top of the Linux kernel and is the oldest currently being maintained. Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. in 1993...

     port. This is the official port of Slackware version 13.1 to ARM.
  • Inferno
    Inferno (operating system)
    Inferno is a distributed operating system started at Bell Labs, but is now developed and maintained by Vita Nuova Holdings as free software. Inferno was based on the experience gained with Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and the further research of Bell Labs into operating systems, languages, on-the-fly...

     boots on the SheevaPlug.
  • Plan 9
    Plan 9 from Bell Labs
    Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002...

     supports SheevaPlug (and other kirkwood-based systems) in its official distribution.
  • SheevaPlug is supported on FreeBSD
    FreeBSD
    FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...

     8.0 and 9-CURRENT.
  • OpenWrt
    OpenWrt
    OpenWrt is a Linux distribution primarily targeted at routing on embedded devices. It comprises a set of about 2000 software packages, installed and uninstalled via the opkg package management system. OpenWrt can be configured using the command-line interface of BusyBox ash, or the web interface...

     (backfire) supported
  • NixOS (svn trunk) supports the SheevaPlug since the last quarter of 2009.
  • Plugbox Linux Is an Arch Linux
    Arch Linux
    Arch Linux is an independently developed, Linux-based operating system for i686 and x86-64 computers. It is composed predominantly of free and open source software, and supports community involvement....

     port for SheevaPlug and other plug devices.
  • Amahi is a home file server which has recently been ported to the SheevaPlug and other plug computing devices.
  • ArchLinuxARM ArchLinux for plug computer devices (ARMv5,ARMv6,ARMv7).ArchLinuxARMArchLinuxARM on a DockStar (French blog)
  • Pathagar Book Server - SheevaPlug Edition is a Open Publication Distribution System OPDS
    OPDS
    The Open Publication Distribution System Catalog format is a syndication format for electronic publications based on Atom and HTTP. OPDS Catalogs enable the aggregation, distribution, discovery, and acquisition of electronic publications. OPDS Catalogs use existing or emergent open standards and...

     based Book Server running on top of Debian
    Debian
    Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

     Squeeze. Pathagar Book Server - SheevaPlug Edition

Variants and modifications

A version with an eSATA port for connecting a SATA
Sata
Sata is a traditional dish from the Malaysian state of Terengganu, consisting of spiced fish meat wrapped in banana leaves and cooked on a grill.It is a type of Malaysian fish cake, or otak-otak...

 hard disk is also available and sometimes referred to as SheevaPlug+. Revision 1.3 of the SheevaPlug can be extended by one ESATA port, but soldering is required and will void the warranty.

Marvell
Marvell Technology Group
Marvell is an American producer of storage, communications and consumer semiconductor products.Founded in 1995, Marvell Technology Group Ltd. has operations worldwide and approximately 5,700 employees. Marvell’s U.S. operating subsidiary is based in Santa Clara, California and Marvell has...

 offers a development kit to assist in the development of software for the platform. The kit includes the GCC cross-compiler for ARM. The device includes a mini USB connector wired to an FTDI FT2232 chip which provides the developer's computer with access to two ports, a JTAG port connected to the internal JTAG bus, and an RS232 port connected to the Kirkwood processor's serial port through which the bootstrap and kernel console can be accessed. This debug console can be accessed from any computer with support for the FTDI bus translator (FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, Windows).
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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