rails + sheevaplug = rails home development server and more

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 (开发者_StackOverflow99$) 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).

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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.

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It might be possible, but when I tried a simple ruby DB app, I could not find a lot of the native ruby gems that were needed for the application I was trying to make ( most notably json, mysql, etc) ... I was using Pogoplug and a firmware from openpogo.

The makers of Tonido ( codelathe ) had stated that they want the plug lightweight and they have no plans to support Ruby or other high-level scripting language, they mention Python in this article :

http://www.codelathe.com/blog/index.php/2009/04/16/tonido-q-and-a/

To make applications your best bet is c/c++ or PHP