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Boot a CD and Make Your X-Box Join the Cluster

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the cheap-distributed-computing dept.

jaromil writes "Last week at the Linux Expo UK in London the dyne:bolic distribution was shown to boot on a XBOX console automatically joining a cluster of other PCs on the fly, there is also an article on ZDNet UK covering the story." The article also discusses some of the issues with getting unsigned code to run on the X-Box.

4 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. xbox too slow for the cost by Carbon+Unit+549 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a builder of clusters, I can tell you that we are always looking for more bang for the buck. The xbox is cpu is at least 5 times slower than a Pentium 4 3 GHz cpu. Thus, it needs to be at least five times cheaper (including extra network and power comsumption overhead). A shuttle box with 1 GB Ram and GHz cpu goes for about $750. So at best, the xbox is barely breaking even at $150 per node. When you add chipping costs, network switches, power consumption, floor space and parallel efficiency, the xbox loses.

    The playstation efforts, are to program the vector units, not just use the general cpu. Even with that it is not worth it now, but it is hoped that the experience gained with ps2 might translate to a quicker porting to ps3.

    --

    nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &

  2. Now with added... by Salsaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am working with Jaromil on the dyne:bolic CD. The latest bootable CD also contains the LiVES video editing system. With this CD it will be possible to grab frames from a camera, edit and splice the clips, VJ with them, then encode them to any format and burn them on to CD ROM.

  3. Re:Comparions... by hattig · · Score: 3, Insightful

    VT:

    1100 x ~300W = 330kW
    1 year running 24/7 at 5c/unit: $141,000

    XBox: 52000 x ~100W = 5200kW
    1 year running 24/7 at 5c/unit: $2,300,000

  4. The /. story and the article are both incorrect. by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    jaromil writes "Last week at the Linux Expo UK in London the dyne:bolic distribution was shown to boot on a XBOX console automatically joining a cluster of other PCs on the fly, there is also an article on ZDNet UK covering the story." The article also discusses some of the issues with getting unsigned code to run on the X-Box.

    First: It was not shown to boot on an XBOX console. It was shown to boot on a hacked Xbox (Note correct capitalization) console. This is important information and should have been included in the story submission.

    Second: The ZDNet UK article claims that clustering Linux on Xbox requires using OpenMosix. This is untrue. You could use Mosix! Or, you could use one of the other clustering packages available. Beowulf clusters come to mind... At least the ZDNet article points out that it's a hacked Xbox, however.

    While knowing it is hacked would seem to be simply an assumption for any /. reader, who is assumed to know that Xboxes are hackable, and must be hacked to use them for this purpose, there is the possibility for a buffer overflow bug in the DVD-ROM accessing code, and so we need to know how the boot was carried out. Indeed, on a site known for its technical discussions, this piece of technical information not being included is so grievous an error as to be ridiculous.

    You could sum this whole comment up, unfortunately, as "thanks, taco!"

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"