The TonidoPlug is built on the same Sheevaplug platform as the PogoPlug version 1 (and others), with the exception that the TonidoPlug has more RAM. Both units came nicely packaged, the consumer plug manufacturers have paid attention to Apple here. As with the PogoPlug, there isn’t much in the package: The plug computer, a power cable, an ethernet cable. Plug it into power, your router, add a USB drive, and you are up an running. Actually, you can set up the TonidoPlug without the USB drive attached, but some functionality will be necessarily absent.

The hardware is basically the same, so what makes the TonidoPlug special? Ubuntu for one. The plug is running Ubuntu 9.04. So it has a very recent Linux kernel, and messing around the plug via SSH is similar to any other Linux server. Apt-get is there, as well as other standard Linux tools. More on this later. The main difference between the PogoPlug and TonidoPlug is the Tonido software suite. This is a collection of apps running on the TonidoPlug, and administered as plug-ins in the Tonido admin app. This is in addition to the plug administration app to handle the low level setup of the plug (adding SMB shares, mounting drives, etc.). The apps include: Explorer (file explorer), Torrent (bittorrent client), WebSharePro (file/drive sharing), Workspace (PIM, group collaboration), OpenID (OpenID server), Photos (photo sharing), Jukebox (mp3 server), Money (personal finance), Thots (basic blog), Desktop Search, Backup. In addition for $19.99, you can add an SSL cert to run these apps over SSL.

PogoPlug is mostly focused on file/drive sharing. And it does it well. I have used mine to make my files available to me wherever I have internet access. And I have used it to make photos and other files available to other people via an obfuscated URL. This has worked well to transfer large numbers of large files to people with minimal computing skills. But, that is about it. And this functionality requires the intervention of the PogoPlug.com services to make the connection to your PogoPlug.

The TonidoPlug is much more autonomous. It does support a re-director service to connect you and others to your TonidoPlug via a sub-domain. But, you can use DynDNS.com or any other dynamic IP service. Or, if your plug has a static IP, you can point your self managed domain name to it. It’s your choice. I tried out the WebSharePro, OpenID, and Torrent apps so far. The Torrent app works well. It’s similar to using the Transmission web client. WebSharePro is taking a little getting used to. I haven’t figured out yet how to set a readonly share that I can send a link to someone to gain access. It appears to require setting up individual users, with usernames/passwords. I’ve only just started using it, so I won’t say it can’t do it. The OpenID server seems to work fine. I was able to log into serverfault.com using my TonidoPlug OpenID URL. I like that. That is all I have had time to explore so far.

As I said earlier, the TonidoPlug runs Ubuntu 9.04. So, if there is room, it should run most anything that will run on the ARM version of Ubuntu. I installed Webmin and Firefly using guides found in the TonidoPlug user forums. It took some tweaks to get them both running. Firefly picked up my iTunes library, but doesn’t appear as a shared library on the network. More tweaking needed. Webmin works fine. The TonidoPlug is probably a friendlier hacker plug than the PogoPlug, but with more out of the box functionality than a plain Sheevaplug.

Look for a slightly used version 1 PogoPlug on eBay soon.

I owned both a Commodore VIC-20 and C-64, worked in a computer store selling C-64s, C-128s, and Amigas. I lusted after the PET and the Amiga. And I made my first consulting fee writing software for the C-64. Even then I was starting my path in the cult of Pascal. First there was VAX-11 Pascal, then Kyan Pascal, MS QuickPascal, Turbo Pascal, and finally I entered the temple of Delphi. I’ve owned 5 different Palm handhelds. And, I just bought a new Ruby IDE (Ruby Mine) to go with that addiction. I also belong to the Linux, Mac, and Android cults.

Outside of IT, I’ve owned pretty much nothing but Canon cameras since my FTb-QL in 1977.

I think it is similar to the car guy who will own nothing but a Chevy or Ford. We all want to be right, and we hang out with those who agree.

So, what cults do you belong to?

As i’ve written before, I’ve run Linux (SUSE) on my personal desktop and home servers for several years prior to moving to the Mac. I still run Linux for my home server. The only Windows computer I have running at home is my kid’s computer. They have games that won’t run elsewhere.

I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my office desktop in a dual boot configuration. It handled my dual monitors, quad core CPU, 4Gb of RAM without a hitch. But what it couldn’t handle was working in my office. Now, I had no problem administering our dozen or so Linux servers, reading/writing Word, Excel, Powerpoint documents. I had no problems dealing with our various Java applications, or accessing data on our office network. But, two things have made a permanent conversion difficult, at best. Number one is Exchange/Outlook. I wrote about this earlier. Interacting with Exchange via Linux is painful if you use Exchange calendaring, contacts, or anything other than mail. There is no good way to interact with Exchange calendaring in Linux. Number two is somewhat surprising. As part of a server upgrade project we have adopted Citrix XenServer to handle server virtualization. This is based on the Linux-based Xen project. You would expect it to be very cross platform. You would be wrong. The management tools are Windows only. So, it uses a Windows only management console to manage Linux based hypervisors with Linux guest virtual machines.

Interestingly, both of these observations have been commented on in the last few days:

Where are the Enterprise Management Tools for Linux on the Desktop? by David Lane

What would you exchange Exchange for? by Doc Searls

So, I’m not alone.

I think as desktop virtualization matures, it will be easier to run the desktop of your choice. I use VMWare Fusion on my Mac to run Linux, Windows, and even Haiku. The downside for Linux is there will be less of an incentive to develop the replacements for Outlook and the enterprise management tools. There will also be fewer requests for those applications from corporate users. Why wait for the open source equivalent when I can run the Windows version in a virtual machine.

In the meantime, it’s back to XP. I’ve got work to do.

I am not a fan of Windows. For the last several years, the only time I used Windows was at work. Until now, I didn’t have the authority to choose otherwise. I decided about a month ago to switch my OS to Linux. Of course that means choosing a distribution. I used SUSE for several years, and was happy with it. So, I decided to load openSUSE 11.0 on my desktop. It was a painless install. openSUSE was considerate enough to make room for itself and leave room for Windows and set up dual boot. Very nice.

Time to boot up. Ok, I have two identical desktops running mirrored on both monitors. I find the desktop/monitor settings and set it accordingly. And it doesn’t work. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get openSUSE to correctly span my desktop across both monitors. It insisted on mirroring on both. That sucks. I got tired of screwing with openSUSE, and fired up the Ubuntu 8.10 install. I did have to intervene so it used the existing partition setup, but that was not a big deal. The install proceeded normally. I booted up and was met with a desktop that correctly spanned both monitors without intervention from me. Perfect. Ubuntu wins.

I have used OpenOffice (and NeoOffice) for several years. I have never had a situation where it couldn’t do what I needed, and interoperate with MS Office. But, I need to interoperate with Exchange. So, I installed Evolution  and set it up to work with our Exchange hosting provider.

Evolution seemed like a good solution. It has many of Outlooks features, it sets up quickly. But, it stinks. It’s slow syncing mail. It would frequently freeze when trying switch to the calendar while mail was syncing. And the calendaring synchronization is terrible. It’s slow, it’s unreliable, and it only works with Outlook Web Access.

So, I loaded Thunderbird for email (using IMAP) and I update my calendar by hand.

Every year for the past 6 or 7 has been declared the year of the Linux desktop. The year it takes over the office. It’s not going to happen. Not until the Linux community recognizes and addresses the real obstacles to widespread adoption, MS Office and Exchange. OpenOffice addresses the main components of MS Offices (except Access, but there are substitutes for it). And OO works well. But, Exchange is entrenched in most enterprises, and it won’t be dislodged easily. Sure, there are alternatives for Exchange, IMAP/POP3 servers, iCal servers, etc. There is NO good way to inter-operate with an existing Exchange environment. And without one, Linux cannot make significant inroads in existing enterprises.

In the meantime, I am loading Windows XP as a VirtualBox VM so I can run Outlook.