KNOPPIX as clustering enviroment

[eadz]

With Knoppix supporting PXE and Etherboot network booting, it has to be the fastest way to turn an unused computerlab/office into a powerful linux cluster. There has been talk on the debian-knoppix mailing list about including distcc, a distributed C compiler, which lets you distribute your compiling to many computers, and also letting knoppix-teminal boot into a KDM on the server, instead of running knoppix locally.

But what about OpenMosix ?

Using that would mean that many more applications could be done on the cluster, including compiling, 3d rendering, audio and video encoding, and a whole lot more. What better way to put to use those unused PC's?

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Is this a version of Beowolf?

[Thomas]

Beowulf and Open Mosix are both distributed (active/active) clustering enviorments. Open Mosix is all GPL software, with a commitment to Free Software, not just Open Source. (Read some of Richard Stallman's writings on the difference.)
Analogous, somewhat, to Red Hat and Debian.

What is interesting about the suggestion is the idea of temporary clusters -

useful for classrooms where you have to restore computers back to their original condition. The students store the setup info on floppies or usb thumbdrives.

Or building a cluster to run on a problem over the weekend, and on Monday, a simple reboot and the workstations are back to normal.

[true1ever]

Would be great if this could be done without having to use a different kernel, just by loading a userspace program and having a simple setup where you can choose if the node should be a master or a slave.

Beowulf and Open Mosix are both distributed (active/active) clustering enviorments. Open Mosix is all GPL software, with a commitment to Free Software, not just Open Source. (Read some of Richard Stallman's writings on the difference.)
Analogous, somewhat, to Red Hat and Debian.

What is interesting about the suggestion is the idea of temporary clusters -

useful for classrooms where you have to restore computers back to their original condition. The students store the setup info on floppies or usb thumbdrives.

Or building a cluster to run on a problem over the weekend, and on Monday, a simple reboot and the workstations are back to normal.

[David Douthitt]

OpenMOSIX and Beowulf are only similar in that they are clusters. Nothing else.

Beowulf is a computing cluster that uses standard cluster APIs such as MPI; you need specially compiled code to run the code against the Beowulf. Beowulf clusters would be used in traditional computing clusters: climate analysis, weather prediction, etc.

OpenMOSIX is more of a "load-balancing" cluster (bad word.... but never mind). Programs do not have to be specially compiled for running on the cluster, and the cluster moves each program to a particular computer in the cluster, taking advantage of speed and low system load.

They are for different purposes. I don't think Knoppix would be useful in a Beowulf cluster - but for use in an OpenMOSIX cluster it just might be ideal....

[true1ever]

If someone has an ISO of Knoppix with Openmosix please post. I was thinking of making one myself but I am not sure how difficult it would be to replace the patched knoppix kernel and ensure that all the apps will still work. If anyone has any relevant information about this, let me know.

Jim

With Knoppix supporting PXE and Etherboot network booting, it has to be the fastest way to turn an unused computerlab/office into a powerful linux cluster. There has been talk on the debian-knoppix mailing list about including distcc, a distributed C compiler, which lets you distribute your compiling to many computers, and also letting knoppix-teminal boot into a KDM on the server, instead of running knoppix locally.

But what about OpenMosix ?

Using that would mean that many more applications could be done on the cluster, including compiling, 3d rendering, audio and video encoding, and a whole lot more. What better way to put to use those unused PC's?

[eadz]

If someone has an ISO of Knoppix with Openmosix please post. I was thinking of making one myself but I am not sure how difficult it would be to replace the patched knoppix kernel and ensure that all the apps will still work. If anyone has any relevant information about this, let me know.

Jim

With Knoppix supporting PXE and Etherboot network booting, it has to be the fastest way to turn an unused computerlab/office into a powerful linux cluster. There has been talk on the debian-knoppix mailing list about including distcc, a distributed C compiler, which lets you distribute your compiling to many computers, and also letting knoppix-teminal boot into a KDM on the server, instead of running knoppix locally.

But what about OpenMosix ?

Using that would mean that many more applications could be done on the cluster, including compiling, 3d rendering, audio and video encoding, and a whole lot more. What better way to put to use those unused PC's?

Yeah I made one..
Not sure where it is tho.
It's not that hard to do.
First. read the custom kernel howto.
you just need to compile a kernel with the openmosix patches, and when remastering apt-get install openmosix. that's about it. Of course you may want to automate the config. and you might have to delete the openmosix config files ( or move them) so you can edit them when knoppix is running.

[Robert Michel]

Salve,

look this:
http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/

--copy&paste--
FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) for Debian GNU/Linux

*FAI is an automated system to install a Debian GNU/Linux operating system on
a Linux Cluster. You can take one or more virgin PCs, turn on the power and
after a few minutes Linux is installed, configured and running on the whole
cluster, without any interaction necessary. Thus it's a scalable method for
installing and updating a Beowulf cluster or a network of workstations
unattended with little effort involved. FAI uses the Debian distribution and
a collection of shell- and Perl-scripts for the installation process. Changes
to the configuration files of the operating system are made by cfengine,
shell and Perl scripts. Using FAI, an unattended and fully automated
installation of a several Linux clusters were performed.
--end--

Why not make a fusion of both projects?

Greetings,
rob

[ziyad]

Salve,

look this:
http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai/

--copy&paste--
FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) for Debian GNU/Linux

*FAI is an automated system to install a Debian GNU/Linux operating system on
a Linux Cluster. You can take one or more virgin PCs, turn on the power and
after a few minutes Linux is installed, configured and running on the whole
cluster, without any interaction necessary. Thus it's a scalable method for
installing and updating a Beowulf cluster or a network of workstations
unattended with little effort involved. FAI uses the Debian distribution and
a collection of shell- and Perl-scripts for the installation process. Changes
to the configuration files of the operating system are made by cfengine,
shell and Perl scripts. Using FAI, an unattended and fully automated
installation of a several Linux clusters were performed.
--end--

Why not make a fusion of both projects?

Greetings,
rob

What is the difference between the FAI and cluster knoppix.