1. Start here
   1. Welcome
   2. Specifications
   3. General background info about SW/HW
   4. Assemble the HW
   5. Install SW
   1. Campaigns
      1. Funded: Crowd Supply PC 1
      2. Funded: Crowd Supply PC 2
   2. Use it
      1. Success stories
      2. Get support
   3. Sponsoring
      1. Become a sponsor
   4. Contribute
      1. Build Firmware
      2. contributing code
      3. images .. documentation

FLOSS Devices at Reasonable Prices

GnuBee PC-1 (2.5” drives) and PC-2 (3.5” drives) are shipping from Crowd Supply

Disclaimer

This project is NOT endorsed in any way by the Free Software Foundation FSF. But the project is heavily influenced by the philosophy of Free Software.

We received on October, 2 2017 an email from the FSF requesting to not use the name GnuBee. As soon as a new name is determined we will update this site. The e-mail contains the sentence with Thank you so much for working to make freedom-respecting hardware

Introduction

The GnuBee Personal Cloud One and Two (GB-PC1, GB-PC2) are network-attached storage (NAS) devices specifically engineered to run free, libre, open source software (FLOSS). The GB-PC has all the functionality of any commercial, proprietary NAS, but at a much lower cost and with the transparency, reliability, and accessibility advantages that come with using FLOSS.

Reviews

• Neil Brown wrote about the GnuBee for LWN with a focus on mainline kernel support.

• Ben Sturmfels blogged about his experiences with the GnuBee-PC2.

Free as in Freedom

We designed the GnuBee Personal Cloud with the Free Software Foundation’s Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification in mind and have already initiated the application process with FSF.

The GnuBee Personal Cloud can run several popular FLOSS suites for managing routers, NAS devices, or just general computing. These are some of the main suites the GB-PC1 can run:

Debian

OpenMediaVault

The OpenMediaVault project is a Debian-based network-attached storage solution designed for home and small office user who lack deep technical experience or knowledge of setting up and and administering an NAS.

libreCMC

Billed as “the libre embedded GNU/Linux distro,” libreCMC is a fork of the LEDE-project stable branch that uses only libre components.

LEDE-project

The Linux Embedded Development Environment (LEDE) project is a reboot of the OpenWrt community. The GnuBee Personal Cloud One is supported by the LEDE-project in trunk.

FLOSS Devices at Reasonable Prices

GnuBee started with a simple idea: instead of hacking commodity hardware, let’s build the toys we want to play with from scratch . We want to show the world what devices running free software can do. The Personal Cloud 1 is our first product, though we have others in the works. If the GB-PC1 is successful, there will be plenty of others to follow!

If you want to buy it, please email “L. D. Pinney” ldpinney@gmail.com.

How do we keep the cost of our devices down? Because we have both Chinese (Xiaoping) and US (Larry) roots, we have some major advantages over other teams. We don’t need to rent expensive living and work space in China (we stay with family!), and we don’t need to hire translators and other go-betweens. We can work directly with vendors and manufacturers. Because we are committed to working only with FLOSS projects, our software development costs are also reduced and distributed.

Features & Specifications

Processor:
    MediaTek MT7621A
    dual core, multi thread (Linux kernel sees four processors)
    880 MHz, overclockable to 1.2 GHz.
Memory:
    512 MB DDR3 RAM (maximum amount for the MediaTek chip)
    soldered to main board
Storage:
    microSD / SD card slot (tested up to 64 GB cards so far)
    6 x 2.5” / 3.5” drives (HDD, SSD, or mix and match; drives not included)
    Recommended RAID levels are 0 and 1 under LVM and MD, and Linux MD RAID 10
Connectivity:
    2 x Gigabit Ethernet (3 on GB-PC2)
    1 x USB 3.0 port
    2 x USB 2.0 ports
    Serial port (3-pin J1 connector or 3.5 mm audio-type jack)
Power:
    12 VDC @ 3 A maximum
    5.5 mm x 2.1 mm, center-positive barrel jack
Dimensions (GB-PC1):
    Bounding box: 8.5” (L) x 2.75” (W) x 5.5” (H)
    Weight: ~210 g (without drives)
Dimensions (GB-PC2):
    Bounding box: 8.5” (L) x 3.75” (W) x 5.5” (H)
    Weight: ~454 g (without drives)
Enclosure:
    2 x anodized aluminum side plates
    4 x threaded brackets and screws
    24 x drive screws (four per drive)

Versions

• The GnuBee Personal Cloud One (GB-PC1) started shipping in September 2017.
• The GnuBee Personal Cloud Two (GB-PC2) started shipping in January 2018.