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iMac Beowulf Cluster Comes to Life

Posted by timothy on from the taste-the-rainbow dept.

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."

6 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Useless... by afd8856 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  2. I still have ask... by anactofgod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..."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...

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  3. A few typos in the article... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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..."

  4. Finally. by InfallibleLies · · Score: 5, Funny

    After years of inane "imagine a beowulf cluster of those!"es, I can finally see one. My life is now complete, thanks to Slashdot.

  5. X-Grid by gellenburg · · Score: 4, Informative

    With X-Grid coming standar with 10.4 doing this in the future will be child's play.

  6. Re:Isn't this somewhat unneccessary? by Digital+Pizza · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is obviously just a short-term toy project - I doubt they're serious about doing any real work on this. I mean, a 10-megabit hub?

    The power draw would be a problem too. I used to have an iMac DV, and even with the screen in "energy-save" mode, there was still a bit of power being drawn by the tube and accompanying electronics.

    The best old Mac for clustering would be, IMHO, the Gigabit Ethernet G4. They must be fairly cheap by now, have Gigabit Ethernet (duh), take two gigabytes of RAM, and are easily processor-upgradeable if desired (G4 upgrades are getting cheap).

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