BeoWulf Cluster

[GrassMunk]

I am planning to make a cluster of 486s [ive got the hardware lying arround might as well use it.. and yes i know the power will be slight but im doing this for the experience not the computing power]

Anyways... ive got three questions


1) whats a good place to star ?
2) Whats a good Linux OS ?[cause lets face it Winder 2000 is a little pricy for 486s]
3) What are some of the cool things i can do with a BeoWulf Cluster? [cool read: Things for someone who just tinkers around with linux]
GM

[Ares]

You could always start with the HOW-TO at
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Beowulf-HOWTO.html


Never made one myself, but one guy I work with has made a couple with Debian I believe, he says it works quite well.

Good luck

[Tyr-7BE]

1) Answered.
2) Debian and BSD are two extremely popular choices. OpenBSD is supposed to be very secure if you're concerned about that, FreeBSD is VERY popular, and Debian is what you want it to be. http://www.debian.org/ http://www.freebsd.org/ http://www.openbsd.org/ http://www.netbsd.org/
3) Anything to do with distributed computing. Run a freakin big server. Crunch some Genome (http://gah.stanford.edu/) or Folding (http://foldingathome.stanford.edu/) @home (both very worthy causes, IMO). The possibilities are limitless. I'm planning on collecting 486's and other low-level systems in the near future to just keep on adding to one BIG computer. Hopefully in 20 years or so I'll have a decent supercomputer set up :)

[ 22 March 2001: Message edited by: Tyr-7BE ]