I think it is mostly the same, because they only set the minimum stuff needed to run on the sheeva plug.  A few things you would want to compiled into the kernel that's not in the defconfig is:

nfs, fat

oh, and don't forget to set arcnumber and mainline variables in uboot, otherwise the kernel won't boot!

I think you're trying to make the Feroceon branch on the sheeva plug.  I believe that branch was targeted for cross-compiling, I'm pretty sure I remember make calling arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc when I cross compiled the kernel.  My suggestion would be to use the orion or mainline kernel instead.

I suppose you could also hack it if you really wanted to by defining the CROSS_COMPILE= flag when you call make.  Check to make sure you have arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc installed on your sheeva plug and point the CROSS_COMPILE flag to that instead.

that is very cool, but we need more information.  The power question that philip asked is one big one.  Also, does the driver support the touch screen model or just the display model?  If only the display model, how do you start applications?  I suppose you need to ssh into the sheeva and run the applications from there....

yes, I collect the data on memory with "free -o".  Here's part of the script that collects data:


what is it that you find strange?

I started collecting runtime statistics of my sheeva plug with rrdtool and though it might be interesting to others.  I have plots for cpu usage and load, network, memory and harddisk.  These stats is for a running sheeva plug, not just one that sits around all day doing nothing.  Here's a quick list of what's running:

computingplugs.com(apache+mysql+mediawiki)
mythtv backened
vnc
ssh tunnel
nfs

You can see from the cpu usage that it is hardly working at all even with all the stuff running.  I collect data every minute and the plots are redrawn every 10 minutes.  Enjoy.

http://computingplugs.com/index.php/SheevaPlug_Real_time_Statistics

That is just sick... I bought my 16G sdhc card for over $100 and it wasn't really all that long ago (~1yr).   

Sometimes this hobby kills me.

uh, umm.....  yeah....   

I do all my compiling on that too.  I should apply for a job at your PV department. 

I was able to get FreeNX server and the NX open source components compiled and running on the sheeva plug.  It runs nicely and NX is generally faster than vnc. 

Here are the instructions:

http://computingplugs.com/index.php/Installing_FreeNX_server_and_NX_Open_Source_Components

Interesting side note on this, my site got onto a Russian linux site over the weekend (http://www.linux.org.ru/) and got hit pretty hard.  The stats show:

Day                   Number of visits   Pages   Hits           Bandwidth
24 May 2009   2972                   7721   65232   486.84 MB

Now I know I'm not running the most intense content and 3000 visits a day is not "a lot".  But try to frame this inside the fact that I'm running this from a server that draws 10w max.  The services involve is still apache + mediawiki + mysql. Don't forget that I'm also running mythbackend, samba, nfs, vncserver for my local network.  The plug worked flawlessly and served all the pages without a single error as far as I could tell.  I believe if I were to customize the plug to do strictly webserver it could comfortably serve 5000+ visits.

The unit works, and if used correctly, works very well.  I'll be updating my performance page with these stats shortly.

I know this is not a usb stick, but I'm using a western digital my passport essential 320G external 2.5" harddrive (WDME3200TN).  The drive is plug directly into the sheeva.

No problems for about a month of active use.

instructions to boot everything off a usb storage:

http://computingplugs.com/index.php/Booting_entirely_off_an_external_USB_device

here's my memory usage:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        514808     404240     110568          0      77816     123488
Swap:       907664      19456     888208

the biggest memory users are mythbackend, mysql, apache2 in that order.  The cpu usage is usually very low and the system feels responsive.

Actually, I didn't put the fact that the sheeva is hosting my website because I want to see if people would notice.  I ran websites before on commercial hosting sites and I wanted to know if the sheeva is up for hosting small/mid size websites.  So far, the sheeva "feels" faster than some of the sites I've used.  Image the tech's face if you show up with a couple of sheevas to be co-loc at their place.   

Rabeeh, what stats are you looking for?  I could run the benchmark if I don't already have it.

nope, computingplugs is all me.

I started it so that I could keep a log of what I did on the plug in case I need to reproduce it again.  I made it public so that others don't have to figure out the same things I did.

It is also a good way of stressing the sheeva plug.  Hmm... I wonder if openplug is running on the sheeva like I am?  heh.

Charles, I can build the kernel for you if you don't want to do that yourself, but you'll need to tell me exactly which modules you want compiled in.  I'm very interested in the hvr1950 and had been meaning to get it.  The thing was MythTV's website didn't say specifically it was supported.

Does the capture card work on a plain vanilla Ubuntu desktop install?

Information on how to build your own kernel here:

http://computingplugs.com/index.php/Building_a_custom_kernel