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iMac Beowulf Cluster Comes to Life
AmigaAvenger writes "Finally a good use for all those old IMacs that many organizations have laying around collecting dust. We have set up a 5 node (4+1 controller) iMac beowulf cluster, which is appropriately named Skittles, and is running PPC Yellowdog Linux, with MPICH 1.2.6 cluster message passing software."
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of iMac Beowulf clusters!
I was half-way tempted to recreate beowoof with my own stack of pizza boxes, but alas, I'm giving them all away. It will be nice to use the 2nd garage stall for a vehicle again, though.
Constitutionally Correct
The only reason this got posted is to have fun with the Beowolf jokes. Enjoy.
This would be aweseom if we could get this to work on our pile of IIe boxes. The amazing thing is just how many still work after 15+ years.
They should have lined them up in a circle like in the old iMac posters!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I can understand the geek factor, even the teaching / experimenting factor. But, if anybody is in the same situation, please donate those macs to a charity. There are milions of kids in this world that have no access to IT, and could benefit from this kind of equipment. Even if its net value is below 100$, you can bet some kid could play or learn on it.
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
In all seriousness, doesn't it seem kinda bad to have a bunch of CRT-integrated imacs in a cluster? That'd take up a lot of space.
Jay | http://oldos.org
..."Why?"
Not why do it. But why post about it.
This may be interesting if the cluster was created to serve some purpose. but if the purpose was merely for the admins to learn about how to set up a Beowulf cluster, well, that exercise is probably performed at least once a day somewhere in the world.
Hardly seems to warrant a post on one's own Web site, let alone a link to Slashdot, IMHO.
"Skittles"...Cute name, though. Wait til Mars, Inc. hears about it...
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
I still prefer my multipurpose footstool / doorstop idea.
In the place where it says "Why would you want to?" The answer is, of course, "Because they're there, and it's the geek thing to do."
I think they meant to type:
"Why would you want to?" The answer is, of course, "It's not like sex is taking up all my time or anything..."
...originally parse this as 'Mac Mini Beowulf Cluster Comes to Life'?
After years of inane "imagine a beowulf cluster of those!"es, I can finally see one. My life is now complete, thanks to Slashdot.
Haven't been on the Internet much, have you?
Most of the time I surf the net I am shaking my head saying "What the fuck..."
With X-Grid coming standar with 10.4 doing this in the future will be child's play.
Hasn't it been pretty much shown that you can cluster pretty much anything given a network connecting the elements together? What seems to be lost is that the point of clustering is to achieve a certain amount of performance for a lower cost using multiple cheap elements than the alternative higher prices single high performance system. The whole point is lost when the amount of time and effort that goes into the project costs more than the equivalent single out-of-the-box system. In this case, you're seeing on the order of tens of megaflops with what is likely to be a rather high node-node latency. It costs in the high hundreds to low thousands of dollars now to get on the order of 100 MFLOPS to a few GFLOPS in a single box without the latency penalty incurred by message passing programs on the cluster.
So, in addition to beating a dead horse yet again, this project is actually a waste of money if cycles are what you're looking for. And last time I checked, that's pretty much all clusters are for.
...to my first and biggest iMac Starcraft cluster. It used my iMac, the host's girlfriend's iMac, and 3 iMacs the Apple shop guy had borrowed from work (plus some kind of laptop and an early model TiBook). This was the first time everything just worked (mainly because previously I thought I had read in LAN Games for Dummies that 127.0.0.x was a good set of numbers to use).
It was an excellent and multicoloured night. The host's girlfriend remarked genially about "boy games" and gave us stuff to eat.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
yeah but can you make a Beo-- oh, wait a sec
My other account has mod points.
Least Usefull cluster EVER.
Apple Seed project is the only way to go.
Q: Who was that beowulf cluster I saw you with last night?
A: That was no beowulf cluster. That was my wi-fi.
2)
Man walks into a bar, orders a beowulf cluster. Bartender says, "Straight up or on racks?" Man says, "On the racks, please."
3)
Imagine a thread filled with the same one-liner beowulf cluster jokes. Now imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!
4)
I've just gone through a messy divorce. My wife caught me in the middle of an orgy. In my own defense, I was only screwing one iMac. But the damn thing was in a beowulf cluster!
Yum.
With.
How do you like them apples?