WHY Archlinux? Share your setup...

[Telemachus]

I now have about a week under my belt with the Pogoplug V3. My setup powers the pogoplug directly off the 12 volt supply from a computer power supply, which also powers the drive, which is plugged into the internal SATA port, leaving all of the USB ports open. Currently, one USB port has a USB stick running optware for Samba shares. Heres a pic:

http://ppl.ug/HJJwatGEkFU/

As I am sure anyone on this forum already knows, the "my.pogoplug.com" portion of CE product line is mostly worthless. Videos don't stream worth crap to anything, backup folders are unreliable, computer shared drives are dirt slow, and other than the fact that the above picture link is running off of my personal "cloud," I have found very little use for the reported "features" of the online services.

Samba is working great from the optware for my local network, but I am a little worried about CE having the ability to finger my files and mess with the indexing of my drives at their leisure.

Which leads to the million dollar question:

WHY Archlinux?

Can someone spell out what they feel are the main advantages of leaving the stock software? What can you do that you couldn't with optware. Do you feel your files are more secure?

Also, anyone who wants to share pics of their setup, I'd like to see.

Thanks!

[xenoxaos]

Since you don't like CE's "cloud" services, this makes switching to ALARM easy.

With ALARM installed on your plug, you can do almost anything you want to. Here's a list of things I've done with my plugs:
1. Samba
2. NFS (which is not possible with the current kernel on the PLX 7820 2.6.31 kernel, but we're working on getting 3.1 out for that chip and we have a working kernel atm, but not production ready as of yet)
3. MiniDLNA sharing to my WD TV HD Live and Samsung TV
4. Transmission bittorrent client
5. Flexget torrent scraper
6. Some self written PERL scripts for wrangling ~6TB of video
7. nginx/php/mysql
8. Webcam server/monitor with fswebcam (can take pictures at an interval with a cron job and make a timelapse)
9. motion webcam monitor (set up surveillance camera on my front door while I'm away, takes pictures of movement, creates webpage, sends it to another plug with nginx, and then texts the new "incident report" url to my phone.)
10. ZNC server to keep me logged into IRC, and to be able to log in from outside my network.
11. Use ddclient to update dynamic DNS services.
12. rsync backup to plug from computers on your network.
13. Wireless <-> ethernet bridge
14. Kismet
15. aircrack-ng sniffing/cracking (left a plug in my new apt when I signed the lease, didn't move in until 10 days later. I had internet in my new apartment 2-3 weeks before comcast could make it out to "install" my service.)

There's other random stuff I do. I just can't think of it all right now.

[Telemachus]

Impressive!

I guess with the new direct boot from SATA, there is little to lose by trying Archlinux.. Unplug the drive, and you are back to stock.

I actually think that the SATA installation should be the stock one on the installation page, or at least mentioned as an alternative to keep CE software running.

But then again, anyone who cares enough to read a little will figure that our on their own...

[WarheadsSE]

For me:

GFN (GoFlex Net):
- ssh tunnel endpoint
- screen
-- weechat
-- ssh to other plugs
-- Transmission
- iSCSI targets
- Pioneers meta server & host

Srv (Pro):
- stock (w/ 2GB flash)
- mapped share from below

House (pro):
- samba
- miniDLNA
- nodejs
- backups target
- also a secondary build/test node

Hunchback (Pro):
- development & testing
- Fried NAND, completely.. whoops
- OC'd (850Mhz) so it's the primary builder

There are others, but hey, they aren't exactly allocated at this point

[Telemachus]

I did say MOSTLY worthless.



That, MP3 Sharing, and Printer sharing have actually been working very well. I'm gunna have to make sure I know well how to install the printer and share it with the network with ALARM before I migrate over...

What solution would you recommend for hosting movies at home so I can watch them at work?

[chromrwavez]

Very new so my setup so far is pretty anemic. Love this thread though b/c I'm excited to hear what people can do. My main purpose for my pogo-b01 is a NAS server for my xbmc box. I can't wait for NFS support in kernel 3.1 (thanks Warheadse in advance!) for faster streaming than SMB. After Arch install and automount, I almost installed sdparm and laptop mode utils to spin down my external HD but realized that my WD Elements spins down on it's own. Installed SMB and mysql which I'm going to set up for centralized library, thumbnails, and fanart for multiple xbmc's (pause in LR, resume in BR). USB TV tuner support sounds interesting in addition to all the configs posted by others above.

[Arktronic]

My plan is to do something completely different. Once we have a proper kernel (the default one doesn't have any of the drivers I need) I'm going to make my PPPro an Internet-enabled garage door monitor+opener. I've got a night-vision webcam for monitoring and a USB relay for triggering the door. That, combined with some software I'm writing, will allow me to look at and open/close my garage door from my phone (again, with custom software for Windows Phone and Android). I'll probably open-source the whole thing, too.

[WarheadsSE]

You know.. it's not *that* hard to recompile it .. "proper"..

[Arktronic]

I'd need some handholding in that regard, I'm afraid, or a step-by-step guide. Especially if I need to modify the boot params, where the brickability of the device is quite possible.

[Philoo]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_Compilation branches out to several methods.

Arch Build System https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_Compilation/Arch_Build_System
also http://archlinuxarm.org/developers/abs

Traditional Way
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Kernel_Compilation/Alternative_Manual_Method

probably a good idea to get a feel of it on a powerful PC before moving to the pogoplug.
There was a thread where WarheadSE shared his config file for the oxnas kernel he was working on at that time. This is probably a good handout.

make sure to select/deselect PCI according to your hardware (I believe compiling the kernel with no PCI support would allow to boot a PCI system but you obviously would not have access to the PCI devices).

the archlinuxarm team also has a github with everything specific there :
https://github.com/archlinuxarm/PKGBUILDs/tree/master/core/

PS. most of this comes from the "Developer" tab on the archlinuxarm.org front page.

*Edit* http://ppl.ug/Ze91Jqp1MEg/ contains quite a few stuff that has been working on (gatjered that from the thread about kernel and modules). Not sure it's production ready but it should help you jump start (hint : the files with config in their name are kernel configuration files)