I saw that Debian was supporting plugs, and could not figure out why Ubuntu (which I run on two desktops at home) had dropped ARM support. I am certainly more familiar with Debian, but Plugbox linux (which ports Arch Linux to ARM) is natively compiled and has validated procedures to get up and running and still have the Tonido apps running. Their procedures would have me running the Tonido apps that are already installed in flash memory.

Is there any difference between "Tonido embedded" and the Tonido that runs out of the box on the Tonido plug?

-Zach

wow, that is a lot of stuff that is NOT working yet. It sounds like running Plugbox Linux (Arch) will actually allow me to run Tonido on top.
http://www.plugapps.com/index.php5?title=Getting_Started:_TonidoPlug

I'll get the best of both worlds that way - easy to use apps + open system for installing whatever I want.

Tonido actually supports its application suite on several Linux distros, as well as Mac and Windows, whereas Amahi is Fedora only.

I am quite pleased to have a TonidoPlug on the way so that I can actually get a home server up and running. I am a pretty competent tinkerer, but I'd prefer to have home server applications that work easily enough that my wife and kids can depend on: user/group file sharing, media server, backup services, etc.  I'm not sure whether I should just use Tonido out of the box, especially since it runs on a distro that no longer supports ARM processors. It looks like various good people have already done the heavy lifting to give me some choices-- I'm considering going the fedora/Amahi route, or possibly the Arch/plugbox route. Can anyone speak from experience as to how well these alternatives compare with Tonido, or make another recommendation?

My thinking was actually to add a heatsink and just leave the plastic case off. Depends on where your plug is though...

Since you've gone that far, why not add a proper heat sink to the CPU and not bother trying to get the cover back on -- might be better than fan, and you could ditch the fan completely.

1- Must be packaged within an enclosure (vs.  bare-bones)
2- Must be quite and doesn't include any moving parts
--> must have esata: possibly as combo port w/ usb2 (but not eSata at expense of at least one available USB port)
3- Must be in the price range $100-$150
-->usb3
4- Must have the best power efficiency
5- Must have the highest processing power available (vs. lowest price/performance).
6- Must be below $100
7- Must have the smallest footprint possible.
8- Must be plug computer form factor and pluggable to a wall outlet.
9- Must have slick design and look.

Duly noted. I did finally realize that, but only after a fair bit more reading. TonidoPlug IS on my shortlist of candidates for purchase.  Given the limited availability of other open devices, it may very well be the one I go for.  If you have seen multiple comparisons of TonidoPlug and PogoPlug, then perhaps you could do something on your website to make it clear that your device is more open to tinkering.


Nor does it have an SDHC card reader slot.

If it had an SDHC card reader (that it could boot from) or eSata, I would place an order today.

so it is not for sale then?

is that the 'standard' or the 'plus' (adds eSata and microSD) ?

My impression (without actually using them) of the TonidoPlug and PogoPlug is that they are basically locked into the ongoing services offered by those vendors. Probably great for a lot of consumers and I wish them good fortune in the market. While I certainly appreciate something that will work right out of the box, I want the flexibility to customize without purchasing someone else's packaged service or going through a vendor website to access a device on my own network.

The HP thin client looks pretty interesting, but if I were going for a user interface, I would probably be thinking more along the lines of the Acer Aspire or the Asus eeePC.

I did find another plug-type device that fills my immediate needs right out of the box, but does not have much horsepower -- and there is no indication that it can be customized (but it does provide a straightforward method for loading new firmware). The company has a number of other interesting devices as well:
http://www.addonics.com/products/nas/NAS2XU2.asp

I'm pretty excited to jump into the plugcomputer world, but I notice that there is pretty limited availability of these devices ready to ship from the vendors. I would like to know if any users or developers here have had any good experience using other low-power devices for always on home network services.?

such as:
Asus Rt-N16 GB/N/USB router with 128 MB RAM flashed with Tomato and running optware
WD WorldBook running optware
Synology products
etc.

For computing power, it looks like most plugs have these other devices beat in terms of CPU & RAM, but for streaming files a built in SATA drive should outstrip an external USB drive. If anyone has a strong recommendation for another device type that is widely available (and cheap), I'd sure like to hear it (and what firmware/OS/packages you used). My needs are: stream media to mixed devices on LAN, print server, remote access file server, backups.

-Zach