Hello I’d like to build a “Rails Brick” using a Sheevaplug from Marvell (O.S. is Ubuntu out of the box but You can install other distributions on It). It will be a home server and a silent, low cost (99$) low energy development machine.
I’d like to add rails RVM, lot of gems, git-based heroku like deployment, passenger + nginx. This way I could have a portable server with a complete development environment and maybe I could find a hosting company where I can co-locate a grid of this devices or I can sell It as a simple little server for 10 or less users offices, with some centralized rails services (I think to a CMS, a BLOG, a WIKI, calendar or whatever this little jewel could afford). The usb port could make It a print server too or a UMTS link to the web via HUAWEI like usb UMTS keys.
Can you give me some hint about:
- Is this project a crazy-close-to-failure idea? Why?
- which gem would You include?
- which rails open source app would you suggest?
I have already an Excito Bubba Server at home, I saw the TonidoPlug so It came up in my mind to build something similiar but Rails based (Bubba is PHP based, TonidoPlug I don’t know but It does not seems a Rails thing).
I make a print server with a SheevaPlug. It comes with Ubuntu 9.04, and it is just like any other server. Just connect it and it will get a IP address from DHCP and you can SSH into it (default pw for root is
nosoup4u). I cannot help you with Ruby, but the idea of having a portable general purpose server is just right for it.As for developing applications to sell to others, the SheevaPlug is sold as a development platform, so you are right on target there too. If it is a commercially sound idea, well… I have no idea.