Sheeva Plug

This might be my next new gadget: the Sheeva Plug, an ARM-based Linux server in a wall-wart introduced by Marvell. It’s like a headless Intel P3 or AMD Athlon server in a wall-wart, but just drawing under 10 W of power and under $90. You get a system with a 1.2 GHz ARM926EJ-S compatible processor (Marvell’s MV88F6281 Sheeva technology based processor, ARMv5), 512 MB SDRAM, 512 MB Flash, 1 USB 2.0, an SDIO slot, a 1Gig Ethernet, plus it has the JTAG and console available (via dedicated mini-USB port on the side; on the Slug you had to hardware hack and pull the wires out for these). In addition Marvell has made it totally open source (software, hardware, everything,…). Compare that with the Slug’s: 266 MHz, 32 MB SDRAM, 8 MB Flash.

Marvell website already provides a flash image of Ubuntu 9.04 with detailed instructions here. Links: Cnet, Slash Gear, NY Times, Scientific American.