Startinga Cluster: Ideas?
 

I found a few old computers (like 4) that I'd like to build a cluster around. Its mostly for the learning process and it sounds like its pretty neat without being too hard. I'm new to Linux, so this sounds like a fun project that will really get me doing some interesting stuff.

Anyway, before I really embark on this, I would love if there could be a point to do it. The computers are old emachines, and I really don't feel like taking them all apart and just building a rack, i'll probably just stack them in a closet and plug power and cat 5 cords into them.

At first I was interested in doing Seti@home or Folding@home, but neither of those offer cluster support.

What type of software supports clusters where I can actually see the processors working together to do something faster?

From your post I understant that you don't know exactly what you want to do, but you would want to build a cluster. You could try http://bccd.cs.uni.edu/ . This is a live CD that comes with some intereting cluster tools. The one I tested is openMosix that moves applications transparently across you cluster. (but I didn't tested from that cd, although some other people said it work fine).

There is a lot of documentation around about grids and clusters, but beware it can be uninteresting if you don't have something to do with it. (I don't think quake will run faster).

Hope it helps, and tell us your impressions of the experiment ;).

Thanks for the tips. But I'm really looking for suggestions on what to do with it, otherwise, like you said, it would more than likely be uninteresting.

I was actually thinking of starting the same thing myself. Let me know how your results turn out (and what you've found out so far).

Are there any cluster solutions, which can actually speed up the execution and processing on one program? For example, openMosix meerly divides the processes up on two computers. Therefore, if I run one program, I am not taking advantage of the second computer. I want to make a cluster which, somewhat converts my computer to a dual processor computer. Is this possible, or am I crazy?