have you looked into the *nix command 'dd' ?  ya, i know it's way old school, but its insanely thorough -- it's also insanely powerful so be very careful that you get the syntax correct...

i'm running lighttpd with very acceptable response times.  haven't done any official benchmarking, but did notice that lighttpd was about half as heavy on system resources as apache.

so...  for us booting entirely off a USB drive (like instructed http://www.computingplugs.com/index.php/Booting_entirely_off_an_external_USB_device ), i'm guessing we'll need to do:

bash ./README* --rootkernel

the attached usbfix-image worked great for me.  thank you.  LEADDOGRULES

it's as easy as you think if you're using the serial device.  but..  be careful, some usb2serial adapters don't work.  i have read that the usb x-10 transmitter doesn't work either.

strange.  in order for me to boot off my SD card, i had to set my bootargs differently.  if i tried to use the aforementioned root=/dev/mmcblk0p1, the system would error and tell me that there are a few choices.

eventually, i had to use:

and now that i've rebooted, i'm not sure it actually worked.  (i wrote a file to the root directory and it's now showing up after rebooting -- i didn't saveenv but rather typed 'boot') anyone know how i can check to see if the FS is set for the SD card versus the internal flash?

thanks!

ordered mine on May 26th, received on July 21st (Iowa).  8 total weeks.  worth every single minute, though.  i emailed them on the sixth, and received a very nice, and seemingly personalized, email explaining the backorder, the expected fulfillment date, and a promise that i would be in the first batch sent out.  apparently from other comments around here, that was the truth.  for that, i'm impressed.

as far as i'm concerned, i really can't complain too much.  the product was splattered all over the most visible techie news sites within a matter of days, so i'm sure the demand was overwhelming.

yeah, the wait was painful but i'm simply thrilled to have one.

i had the same problem.  installed alpha-6, and everything worked perfectly (including heyu -- pointed at /dev/ttyUSB0).

here is the USB/Serial adapter that is working with the Sheeva:
SABRENT SBT-USC1K USB to Serial (9-pin) DB-9 RS-232 Adapter Cable (retail)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156003&Tpk=12-156-003

worked like a charm.  i'm LOVING this thing.