[H-GEN] HUMBUG cluster WAS Re: [HUM-TALKS] Talk / Demonstration of MOSIX

[Timothy Hitchens]

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Or you could get a big dual machine and use vmware to run the cluster
inside of the virtual machines like we do for testing etc for web
clustering.

My laptop could act as 3 machines if needed.

Oh and thanks Andrew!!


Timothy Hitchens (HiTCHO)
Open Source Consulting
e-mail: tim at hitcho.com.au

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Majordomo [mailto:majordom at caliburn.humbug.org.au] On 
> Behalf Of Andrew Pullin
> Sent: Tuesday, 21 January 2003 4:48 PM
> To: general at lists.humbug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [H-GEN] HUMBUG cluster WAS Re: [HUM-TALKS] Talk 
> / Demonstration of MOSIX
> 
> 
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about 
> Humbug and     ]
> [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses 
> will vanish. ]
> 
> Hi All,
>     I would be interested in "playing" with a Beowulf Cluster 
> at meetings. As a suggestion - would it have to be very big? 
> We could maybe just use 3-4 machines from old hardware we 
> have available instead of lots and have a power problem. The 
> idea is to get a cluster to get the basics and the concepts 
> right, the scaling and performance can come later.
> 
>     Another suggestion I have is we could advertise the 
> meeting by doing a publicity stunt and build a cluster. I 
> remember a few years ago when Beowulf was young about a 
> Conference where someone did a demonstration by literally 
> buying the book at lunchtime, making a phonecall to a 
> hardware supplier, borrowing some hardware, and when it was 
> delivered the next day, built the 315th fastest super 
> computer in the world by mid afternoon and the cost was less 
> than US$20000.
> 
>     We could do the same thing. How about do an installfest 
> and ask a local supplier to loan us the hardware for a couple 
> of days. We could promote the event with press releases 
> (which don't cost us anything) and sell it to the hardware 
> supplier like that. If the media doesn't pick it up it 
> doesn't matter as the supplier would probably hope to get 
> some free advertising from at least the attendees at the 
> installfest. Besides that, if we posted on slashdot and got 
> the supplier to list the Web page on their server, a good 
> slashdotting should be enough exposure for any company. We 
> could demo the cluster to compute Pi to a million or so places maybe.
> 
>     We could also ask for donations, or have a BBQ to raise 
> money for Humbug to buy the machines for the meetings. If we 
> could use 4 machines for a "clusterette" say to play with - 
> cheap low spec machines would only cost us about $2500 tops 
> (no monitors, keyboards etc). Maybe a rich entrepreneur could 
> donate them to Humbug (how about it Hitcho? Tax write-off for 
> your company - gift to a non profit organization). Anyhow 
> there are a few ideas that we could maybe look at to get the 
> project going.
> 
>     Finally, I have a friend who does Beowulf Clusters for a 
> living and works at Griffith Uni. I will be seeing him 
> tonight, and if I remember, I will ask him if maybe he might 
> like to do a talk at a meeting about what is involved in 
> setting a cluster up. Who knows, he might be willing to 
> donate or support us somehow. Basically - you can't find out 
> if you don't ask. Anyhow - is anyone else interested in this 
> project? Hope I have helped with my 2c worth.
>     Cheers!
>         Andrew.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Seikel" <won_fang at yahoo.com.au>
> To: "HGENERAL" <general at lists.humbug.org.au>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 2:57 PM
> Subject: [H-GEN] HUMBUG cluster WAS Re: [HUM-TALKS] Talk / 
> Demonstration of MOSIX
> 
> 
> > [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about 
> Humbug and     ]
> > [ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will 
> > vanish. ]
> >
> >  --- Ben Fowler <fowlerb at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> > > In fact, a couple of people in the club were considering chucking 
> > > together a HUMBUG Beowulf cluster as a special club 
> project, but it 
> > > never got off the ground since we couldn't find an 
> economical way to 
> > > house and power up the pile of motherboards we had access 
> to.  It's 
> > > a shame, because a toy Beowulf cluster would be a fun and 
> > > interesting toy to play with, even for the experience of 
> writing and 
> > > testing some toy parallel applications.
> >
> > Any body interested in trying it again?  Personally I have 
> programmed
> every
> > class of computing device except supercomputers, and I have 
> this hole 
> > to fill in my resume B-).
> >
> > Instead of powering a bunch of motherboards, we could just use the 
> > computers we normally bring to meetings.
> >
> >
> > http://movies.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Movies
> > - What's on at your local cinema?
> >
> > --
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