SheevaPlug mini 'pluggable' computer

Finally I can get my hands on a SheevaPlug, the best replacement for my Linksys NSLU2 as plug computer.
Today digital home services such as media servers, file sharing and backup software all need to be installed on a PC.
A plug computer is a small, powerful computer that connects to an existing network using Gigabit Ethernet.
This type of device eliminates the need for an always-on PC in the digital home to access these services.

The shipment from Globalscale took 3 weeks that is quite too much especially considering that they charged my credit card the day I ordered it, but anyway now I can start hacking it.

Package contains:

SheevaPlug
Crossover LAN cable
USB Cable
Power supply cable (American plug)

In order to connect it to a host PC you have to plug in the USB connector and manually load the appropriate USB device driver on host PC

 sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x9e88 product=0x9e8f

then unplug the USB connector, launch minicom on /dev/ttyUSB1 and plug in SheevaPlug again…

Linux version 2.6.22.18 (dhaval@devbox) (gcc version 4.2.1) #1 Thu Mar 19 14:46:22 IST 2009
CPU: ARM926EJ-S [56251311] revision 1 (ARMv5TE), cr=00053177
Machine: Feroceon-KW
Using UBoot passing parameters structure
Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
On node 0 totalpages: 131072
  DMA zone: 1024 pages used for memmap
  DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
  DMA zone: 130048 pages, LIFO batch:31
  Normal zone: 0 pages used for memmap
CPU0: D VIVT write-back cache
CPU0: I cache: 16384 bytes, associativity 4, 32 byte lines, 128 sets
CPU0: D cache: 16384 bytes, associativity 4, 32 byte lines, 128 sets
Built 1 zonelists.  Total pages: 130048
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=nand_mtd:0x400000@0x100000(uImage),0x1fb00000@0x500000(rootfs) rw root=/dev/mtdblock1 rw ip=e
PID hash table entries: 2048 (order: 11, 8192 bytes)
Console: colour dummy device 80x30
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Memory: 256MB 256MB 0MB 0MB = 512MB total
Memory: 515456KB available (3864K code, 257K data, 104K init)
Calibrating delay loop... 1192.75 BogoMIPS (lpj=5963776)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
NET: Registered protocol family 16
Marvell Development Board (LSP Version KW_LSP_4.2.7_patch2)-- SHEEVA PLUG  Soc: 88F6281 A0 LE
...

login : root
password : nosoup4u

SheevaPlug comes with a preinstalled Ubuntu 9.04 for ARM

# uname -a
Ubuntu jaunty (development branch) debian ttyS0

The platform is built using Marvell’s Kirkwood series system-on-chip (SoC) design with a 1.2GHz Marvell Sheeva™ CPU processor equipped, 512Mbytes of FLASH and 512Mbytes of DRAM. The plug also features a 2.0 USB port to allow users to run applications that require a hard disk or other peripheral.
You can find more detils on Marvell website.

Designed from the ground up to simplify the management of digital media assets, the Marvell plug computer is designed to be left plugged into a wall socket at all times. The plug uses low power to conserve energy and draws on average, less than five watts under normal operation compared to 25-100 watts for a PC being used as a home server.

Booting SheevaPlug with U-Boot bootloader:

         __  __                      _ _
        |  /  | __ _ _ ____   _____| | |
        | |/| |/ _` | '__  / / _  | |
        | |  | | (_| | |    V /  __/ | |
        |_|  |_|\__,_|_|    \_/ \___|_|_|
 _   _     ____              _
| | | |   | __ )  ___   ___ | |_
| | | |___|  _  / _  / _ | __|
| |_| |___| |_) | (_) | (_) | |_
 \___/    |____/ \___/ \___/ \__|
 ** MARVELL BOARD: SHEEVA PLUG LE

U-Boot 1.1.4 (Mar 19 2009 - 16:06:59) Marvell version: 3.4.16
U-Boot code: 00600000 -> 0067FFF0  BSS: -> 006CEE80
Soc: 88F6281 A0 (DDR2)
CPU running @ 1200Mhz L2 running @ 400Mhz
SysClock = 400Mhz , TClock = 200Mhz
DRAM CAS Latency = 5 tRP = 5 tRAS = 18 tRCD=6
DRAM CS[0] base 0x00000000   size 256MB
DRAM CS[1] base 0x10000000   size 256MB
DRAM Total size 512MB  16bit width
Flash:  0 kB
Addresses 8M - 0M are saved for the U-Boot usage.
Mem malloc Initialization (8M - 7M): Done
NAND:512 MB
CPU : Marvell Feroceon (Rev 1)

I’m starting to port KaeilOS / OpenEmbedded on it as soon as I get some spare time.