Slashdot Mirror
Xbox Linux Cluster
aeiz writes "Adam Cecchetti put together a Linux cluster using 3 modded Xboxes and was quite surprised with the results. He used the Mandrake Linux distro." illumin8 summarizes Cecchetti's conclusion after investigating "the cost-effectiveness (or lack thereof) and trouble involved in setting up a 3 node Linux cluster based on the Microsoft hardware. The end result: A cheaper Walmart PC would perform better at the same task."
After all that, chicks still didn't dig him.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Quite surprised by the result? Does that mean that Microsoft didn't threaten legal action?
I want a Nintendo Mariodrake cluster!
-Zelda
Basically, this guy modded three XBox's, put on Mandrake, didn't like the minimal compillation tools it came with, fixed it, and is done. He was impressed with the network performance... not because it was so good, but because he thought it had 10Mbps (it has 100). Ding-dong.. hello... anyone home? Read the specs!
This is news why?
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Stats:
3 XBOXes
Mandrake 9
MPICH
distcc
Quick Overview:
I was walking back from class thinking to myself I haven't done much in the way of parallel computing lately. So I thought it would be a interesting idea to test the usefulness of the XBOX platform as a cluster node, as the XBOX Linux project says they are useful as. At the same time I had heard a lot on various message boards that individuals were using the XBOX as a Linux desktop to check email and browse the web, etc, etc. So, I wrote a grant proposal to Saint Vincent College asking for funds to build a Linux cluster out of XBOXes. I was issued enough funds to purchase 3 units and accompanying hardware for the project.
Parts
After ordering all the neccessary components and a stop to the local Best Buy. I had all the necessary parts to built this cluster.
3 XBOXes
3 Matrix Mod Chips
1 VGA Switch
1 USB Keyboard
1 USB Mouse
1 USB Motherboard Card
Install
My first step was to flash the mod chips, as they came without a BIOS. After some digging on the web it became clear that the only place I was going to find BIOSes were from irc channels, where they were more than happy to hand them out. The programer that came with the Matrix mod chips was easy enough to use. I simply had to choose my BIOS file, and the program wrote and verified it for me.
The alignment of the chips on the board took sometime, however compared to earlier chips that required 29 wires be soldered to the motherboard this was the only viable solution if the XBOX was to be considered as a replacement for a store PC. The next step was to get Linux onto the XBOX. I used the ISO images boot and install from the XBOX Linux projects web site. Most people on the web had luck with cdrws instead of cdrs and mine worked just fine as well.
Installing Mandrake Linux was the next step. The install disk simply wrote the image over the disk and only took about 15 mins to do so. The only problem was that all three units came with different size hard drives. The hard drive units were not clearly marked to their size, and I ended up pulling out my calculator to calculate their disk size.
After swapping disks the Mandrake partition started right up with no problems. I had no trouble using the XBOX as a standard desktop PC after the install. Nor did anything for day to day computing seem missing. Seems if you can get this up and running its fairly easy to use PC after.
Cluster
The clustering of the XBOX units would not go as easily. I wanted to be able to remote admin the XBOXes and the MPICH package needed ssh to pass commands and I was not about to use rsh. After downloading the sshd source from openssh.org, I found my next big missing piece. Gcc was not installed as well. After installing eight rpms for the gcc package I had a C compiler. The version of openssl was outdated for the current version of openssh so that had to be installed before moving on too. It would seem that the Mandrake install was minimal indeed! As even zlib, required by openssl, was not installed. Finally after a few hours of installing and searching I had a node that was ready to install my clustering software on. Distcc which would allow me to cross compile software across nodes was installed. I also installed MPICH as I had experience with it from my other projects. Finally things were ready to go.
Results
The XBOX unit functions well as a desktop computer for general usage, email, web browsing, etc. The total cost of the unit with keyboard, mouse, and parts came to 383.72 dollars. However, it is not as cost effective or as easy as using a general PC obtainable from almost anywhere for the same purpose. The technical merit of soldering the usb to XBOX controller wires as well as installing the mod chip are beyond the technical skills of most. In short if you already have an XBOX and want to tinker/need a computer and have no fear of the possibility of ruining your unit then this is a viable solution. However, as a general replacement to a desktop pc, the XBOX is not nearly as userfriendly or cost effective as a 200 dollar pc from walmart.
As for the XBOXes as a cluster I have to admit that I obtained better results than I had predicted. This was in part due to that the XBOX has a 100 Mbps Ethernet card and I was told they had only a 10 Mpbs card. I recompiled the Linux kernel 2.4.20 on a single node took 48 mins 30 sec. Using distcc the process was cut down to 20 mins. This represented a 2.4 times out of 3.0 speedup. Not to bad for the 3 nodes. My MPICH results were less telling. After nearly 100 runs of the same test programs my results varied between twice as slow across the three nodes and five times as fast as running the same program on a single node.
In conclusion, the XBOX functions well due to the work done by the XBOX Linux project. However the same or greater computing power could be obtained for an equal price, without the complications of modifying the XBOX. This makes the XBOX an unfit solution as a replacement for a personal computer or a cluster node.
"Lookie here, Beauford! This here electric can opener, see, I got me three of 'em, and I tinkered with 'em, but damned if a blender don't mix up a nice al-key-holic drink better than three of these dang-gum things!"
It's an X-Box. It's made to play games, not run Seti@Home.
I wrote a grant proposal to Saint Vincent College asking for funds to build a Linux cluster out of XBOXes. I was issued enough funds to purchase 3 units and accompanying hardware for the project.
so, um.... how can i contact this "Saint Vincent College"... i gotta do some... um.. research.
Ok, now I know it is too much trouble for the average slashdotter to actually read the articles before commenting, BUT PLEASE! How about READING THE FUCKING DESCRIPTION? Once again for the slow people: "The end result: A cheaper Walmart PC would perform better at the same task."
While it might be fun to mod an xbox to run linux to output content on a tv, it is worse than pointless to build a computational cluster with them.
too bad The Neo Project is gone, maybe they could of broke the encryption key just that much faster....
Mike
Imagine a....
*bends head down and walks away*
Understanding is a three-edged sword. -- Kosh Naranek
Whether they actually lose money on every machine or not (and it surely doesn't sound as if marginal cost is greater than the price), they don't want their low margin hardware being snapped up by the thousands by pc-clustering scientists who will never buy a high margin game.
See what I've been reading.
3 XBOXes
3 Matrix Mod Chips
1 VGA Switch
1 USB Keyboard
1 USB Mouse
1 USB Motherboard Card
1 Copy of Halo
1 DVD-RW
2 DVD-RW Media
Really, what would you expect? A cluster's main application is to increase the CPU cycles available for a given program. Raw CPU power is not Xbox's strength.
The Xbox mods should be focused on what makes them useful. No Wal-Mart PC would have Component Video Output or Digital Audio Output at $200. Xbox can be used as a cheap terminal but it will shine as a Media Player that allows you to use your existing content on your existing equipment in the same way a consumer electronics product would.
That's the real difference. A normal PC has many stupid quirks that are useful only when you have unpredictable hardware combinations, i.e. the dozens of volume controls (PCM, MIDI, Master, etc.) and different resolutions. These are not required in a DVD/TV/Stereo setup. And don't get me started on the so far terrible "desktop-on-your-TV" hacks on Video cards.
I'm looking for an Xbox mod that allows me to playback my content stored on ANOTHER computer through the network (the 10GB HDD on the thing would never be enough to store my files), and still be able to play my original, legally owned games in a non-intrusive way. Simplicity and ease-of-use are valued above all else in a console.
Now that would be a mod with a _real world_ purpose.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Let's try to head the inevitible troll post off at the pass. It happens every single friggin time an XBox-Linux discussion appears.
Why do XBox Linux? <insert boring list of reasons why a standard PC is better>
Because it's there!
Any more questions?
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
Not to be a troll, but this guy seems to be claiming he knows what he's doing. From his writeup, I very much doubt that. Performance modelling a cluster is FAR more complicated that "this is how long it takes to compile a kernel on one box, and this is how long in parallel." There are all kinds of issues such as MPICH's underlying communication structure (Tree, Linear, Cube, whatever). The fact that he could not get his MPI test program results consistant tells me that he has no idea how to configure it. Furthermore, when is the last time you saw a Linux kernel take 48 minutes to compile, on any Pentium 3 machine? The XBOX is capable of building a kernel far faster than that.. As another reader pointed out, read the specs.
Oh yeah, one final note. I *hate* how everyone always thinks that they were the first one to think of building a Xbox or PS2 cluster. Kudos to this guy for actually coming through, but his scientific reporting skills leave much to be desired.
I see people talking how this is not cost effective, but there's something everyone's missing. Where's all that money invested into? The graphics card. Wasnt there a slashdot story that pumped data into the gfx card as vector equasions and then read the output of the data? And for some reason, I remember a GF4200 putting out a theoritical 1 Tflop.
Perhaps this isnt soo cost uneffective?
Well, on the whole, fairly uninteresting.
But in case people don't know about it. distcc, the clustering solution he used rocks! It's just a wrapper for gcc, and works on most platforms. We use it here at work on Mac OSX!
http://distcc.samba.org/
super easy to set up too!
I thought that an xbox may run pretty well as a PC, but a wal-mart PC would be better? I'm pretty shocked at that considering how technologically 'good' it is for console games.
The guy who did this did NOT compare performance against Walmart Lindows PCs. In fact, the XBox *WOULD* beat the $199 Wallyworld boxes for performance. The XBox uses a 733Mhz PIII/celeron-like CPU (same specs except a 133Mhz FSB). The Walmart PC has an 800Mhz CPU, but uses a crappy VIA C3 processor (think "PII/400 at best" performance).
The linked article *ACTUALLY* claimed that using a Walmart PC would take less *EFFORT*, in that it wouldn't require a mod chip or dealing with proprietary but "PC-like" hardware. Quite a big difference from saying the Lindows machines would *perform* better.
Don't feel bad, apparently Slashdot editors don't read the links before making baseless comments either.
In other news Joe Smith was quite surprised to find that a food processor was far more effective at shredding food than a coffee maker was. He was quoted to say, "Even hooking three coffee makers together in a Beowulf cluster didn't make them shred food faster than the food processor. Weird. Maybe 10 coffee makers would do the trick".
Its not dead, read up on it if your going to post about it.
Release coming Feb. 15th
http://www.theneoproject.com
If you're trying to cluster XBox'es, why not use OpenMosix? I think everything about it is cool. The load is distributed automatically. Applications don't have to be specially written. All of the boxes can see each other's filesystem? Maybe there is some downside to using OpenMosix for clustering?
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Where the hell is this college and how can I apply? They actually provide funding for things like modding X-boxes??? Damn, I wish they had that when I was in University, I could have requested 16 MB of RAM for my 486 so that I could test how additional RAM affects the playability of EA Sport NHL, as well as test the effects of playing too many videos on grades!!!
I think most of us could have told him those conclusions before he ran his tests. An X-Box is a PITA for a node or as a PC. That doesn't mean there is no practical use for Linux on one. With MPLayer and a few other pieces of software, an X-Box would make a nice media device for the living room. It wouldn't look completely out of place in a stereo rack and just basically has a better form factor than minitower PC. It's already equipped with TV out, an IR reciever and proper audio jacks.
As a bonus, throw MAME and few other games on it. True using an X-Box as Linux gaming machine won't satisfy hardcore gamers. It's just fine for simple games like Pac-Man and Madbomber. Kinda like an Atari 2600 with good graphics. That isn't always a bad thing.
While he states ~$370 per Xbox, you don't need a keyboard, mouse, and mod chip for every xbox.
With the right modchip and a small bit of sodering you can flash the bios (TSOP) already on the motherboard then remove the modchip to repeat on other Xboxs. After the first xbox + supplies, setting up additional xbox is just going to cost the the xbox and a bit of time (1 hour or less). So each additional xbox should be 199.99 + tax.
Granted, it's still not very effective clustering solution.
I spent all day wrapping up some fresh salmon in aluminum foil and cooking it on my engine block..
After replacing the first two fish (fell inside the engine) and getting the engine steam cleaned, I realized that it's MUCH cheaper just to put the fish on the grill, or even use OVEN, believe it or not!
WTF!? Yeah, a PC is probably better than a GAME CONSOLE, you moron! This article was a REALLY weak attempt to bash Microsoft.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
It's cool that this fellow managed to hack this Xbox cluster together. But his methods for performance testing it are ridiculous. Beyond the lack of any meaningful benchmarking, hardware tuning, etc. there's a failure to consider why someone might want to stick a bunch of Xbox's together in the first place. Think about it...what is all of the hardware in the Xbox really suppose to support? GRAPHICS, duh. But this "performance evaluation" doesn't try to do anything with the graphics hardware. A more realistic evaluation of the benefits of clustering these would try to take advantage of the graphics processing power of the hardware. I'll guarantee that a $200 Wal-Mart PC would do much worse in parallel, realtime graphics rendering computations.
Will not be upgrading his ps2 cluster for quite some time.
Now we don't have to imagine a beowolf cluster of these no more .. !
He could have harnessed the power of the Geforce in his distcc also if he had just wired jumpers between pins 1, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 16, & 23 of the Geforce to pins 12, 13, 3, 16, 33, 1, 2, & 9 of the BIOS chip. This has lead to over 16% speed increases in kernel compiles on many LinuXBoxes.
details here and here.
Cheers
It's actually Saint Vincent, in Latrobe Pennsylvania (that's about 30 minutes or so from Pittsburgh); think it's a Catholic college too.
/. user something like this probably doesn't seem too complicated, or maybe even original, but for a middle-aged professor it's something new.
Anyway, you'd be surprised how easy it is to get grants like this at many universities. Sometimes it's not about how great or elaborate a proposal is, but whether or not it seems interesting to faculty. Since you're a