There's always a gotcha when you're hanging out on the Bleeding Edge.
In the case of the Pogoplug 4, there are several gotcha's...
1. While everything works (sorta), the FreePBX GUI is excruciatingly slow. Most would find it unusable. We do. This need not be a deal breaker because you can build any Incredible PBX setup you need on any of the other Ubuntu platforms including the CuBox, make an Incredible Backup, and then restore it to your Pogoplug 4. That avoids having to use the FreePBX GUI directly EVER. In fact, that's the way we build all Incredible PBX systems. Once FreePBX and Asterisk are running, you should be able to make phone calls and use the Incredible PBX apps with little noticeable degradation. What more do you want for $20?
2. MySQL likes about 40MB of RAM as a minimum. When you only have 128MB, that can be problematic. Apache likes boatloads of RAM. Asterisk appears happy at 20MB when nothing much is happening. We avoided RAM exhaustion by setting up a 256MB swap file, but that can be a problem, too, since you're operating with an SDcard. Possible solutions: (1) Don't install FreePBX which eliminates the need for MySQL, Apache, and PHP... but what fun is that. (2) Build the image you want to use with step #1 above and never use a browser to open FreePBX. This keeps Apache usage to a minimum just handling FreePBX's operational requirements for managing calls. In this setup, the Yahoo News app runs without a hiccup, and it's a memory hog: sox and mpg123 easily consume 98% of the RAM resources just processing the text-to-speech for the call. But only 192 bytes of swap file were required to process everything without any noticeable degradation.
3. There are some more issues. First, apt-get goes out to lunch and can no longer process the package list once you load MySQL. Moral: Load MySQL after you install everything else. Second, without a swap file, the whole house of cards collapsed when attempting to load MySQL. We resolved that by creating the swap file before installing MySQL.
4. Fail2Ban is a log scanner which would bring an SDcard and the overall system to its knees so we don't plan to implement that.
5. WebMin is a memory hog, and we see little utility to be gained in adding it either.
But there's plenty to like for $20...
1. SSH works just fine.
2. IPtables with the Travelin' Man WhiteList is rock solid so your Pogoplug is secure.
3. Call quality with Incredible PBX text-to-speech apps is fine.
4. SMS Message Blasting with Google Voice works fine with the standard Incredible PBX script.
5. Asterisk-based ODBC apps work great using any MySQL database you'd like.
6. While apt-get appears to be broken, aptitude works fine and does the same thing.
7. SAMBA works great for Windows networking on your LAN.
8. Lenny is alive and well.
9. We suspect (but haven't yet tested) that Google Voice will be fine to make and receive free phones calls as long as you set it up using the Gotcha #1 procedure. This means you could put one of these devices and a cheap SIP phone in a rental unit or vacation home and have free phone service with nothing more than an Internet connection. We plan to do just that.
more to come including downloadable image...