Remastering with Parallel Python

[jickerson]

Hi, I'm an academic researcher who has access to some spare computers at night and was hoping to use them to run some of my simulations. I ran across Knoppix and really feel like it could be useful.

Unfortunately, I know very little about the ins and outs of Linux and don't have much free time to learn. Does anyone know of a remastered version of Knoppix that has PP (the parallel python module) installed? Ideally, I'm looking for a live CD that would boot up and immediately start up ppserver.py so i could just boot up the computers and walk away (ie: set it and forget it).

I already have my simulations written with PP in mind to take advantage to the multiple cores of my desktop, and was hoping there would be a live cd that would be relatively painless to use. That way i could just burn the copies of the CD, boot up the other computers at night with the distro, and be able to run simulations on them without having to really extend my source code, or learn how to ssh into each computer separately and start up ppserver.py

Thanks
Jordan

[dinosoep]

I don't really have a remastered version ligging around but I think knoppix is a bit overkill :p
I would use slitaz in your place...

and remastering knoppix really is not a lot of work, if you have a specific questions I'm sure they'll help you out

[jickerson]

Thanks for the suggestion. If I get some free time in the next month i may try and take the plunge so future researchers will have an relatively painless option.

The only question i have left is, how secure is slitaz (and the general knoppix version)? When they boot, i will have to enable the network adapter to accept connections for ppserver, but the computer will still be connected to the main network. Do i have to worry about major security issues using either knoppix or slitaz?

[dinosoep]

security is never really a big problem if you are going to use a live cd.
Second of all, there are only a couple proof of concept viruses for linux. There is no real one in use that I know of.
if you want to play it really safe you can still set up a firewall(there is a script for it somewhere in the menu) but I think that'll give troubles with your ppserver.

anyway, I wouldn't worry at all about security issues here