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Junk Super Computer Assimilates All

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the one-mans-trash-is-another-mans-computer dept.

VonGuard writes "The ACCRC is the relatively famous computer recycling non-profit in Berkeley that builds clusters out of old hardware. Make Blog has an article about the Center's plans to build a cluster out of the equipment people bring to recycle at Make Faire later this month. The ACCRC geeks are now able to integrate PII's or better into the cluster, which will be powered by Vegetable Oil and run Parallel Knoppix."

9 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. learn from the flashmob supercomputer by stevetures · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hmm... they tried this piecemeal supercomputer at my university (university of san francisco). From what I understood, they accepted a lot of low-spec computers that actually caused more problems than they served to compute. http://www.flashmobcomputing.org/ Can anyone confirm on my specific point?

    1. Re:learn from the flashmob supercomputer by Darth_brooks · · Score: 4, Informative

      The biggest problem you can run into with older machines is the lack of support for things that make building a cluster easy. The two biggest things I ran into were:

      -Wake On LAN support is huge, so that rules out the old machines with the clicky power switch.
      -Trying to do anything with less than 32 megs of RAM is a PITA.

      On top of that older machines don't always have a NIC, so you're stuck scrounging for parts. Plus who knows what kind of cryptic Acer-Packard Bell-eMachines crap hardware you're going to get via donations (so building a boot image can be a pain), so you're opening youself up to tracking down odd bits of unsupported yet essential hardware drivers (PCI Controllers stand out.)

      Clustering gets way easier when you can stick to at least the same general system brand (e.g. Dell) or even better, identical systems.

      --
      There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
  2. Re:You must warn them all! by MyLongNickName · · Score: 4, Funny

    Soon they'll be breeding us like cattle!

    Yeah... I'm not holding my breath. Quit trying to get our hopes up...

    --
    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
  3. Re:veggie oil? by blincoln · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you look at a typical utility bill you're talking pennies a kilowatt hour.

    I think their idea is to counteract the concept that for the same amount of power, they could be running much more powerful hardware. If the electricity comes from coal, they're wasting energy, but if it comes from biodiesel they're... uh... wasting energy in a way that sounds good to hippies?

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  4. What a colossal... by Harry+Balls · · Score: 5, Informative
    ...waste of electricity.
    State-of-the-art computers are probably about 15 times as fast as Pentium II-based computers, and consume maybe twice as much electricity.
    Or take Pentium M-based computers, they consume less electricity than Pentium II-based computers and are probably about 10 times as fast.

    Just my 2 cents.

    --
    Dedicated Linux servers (root access) $45 p.M.
  5. Reminds me of days of yore.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... the old Stone Soup Supercomputer was the first I can remember that used cast-off computers to generate (what passed for) Serious Horsepower. Tempus fugit, indeed.

  6. Yes, but... by zpeterz63 · · Score: 4, Funny

    will it run Windows?

  7. Re:Why give them to a million dollar university ? by why-did-I-wakeup · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are doing something: learning. They are having fun and at the same time learning about parrallel computing. I'm jealous of them; I would love to have lots of old crap that I could set up and run some sort of parallel computing software. Not to mention this hardware is basically unusable so the poor african towns could possibly have more trouble setting the stuff up than they are worth. Especially if they have to put in a connection to the internet. That could be hundreds of thousands of US dollars to do if the village is far away from a city.

    --
    Most people would rather be certain they're miserable than risk being happy.
  8. I wish them luck... by teebob21 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I got excited about cluster computing a couple years back. I spent about $600 on parts for a 12-node Pentium II cluster, then spent 3 weeks setting it all up. I then spent another 6 weeks with a comp sci professor trying to reverse-engineer the Folding at Home client to parallelize the data units. (Psst...don't tell Vijay!) Our solution was to use the F@H client as-is, and to network the nodes as additional drives and run a client with a different machine ID on each drive.

    As it turned out, a single 1.1GHz P3 was doing more folding than 12 350MHz P2's working in parallel. I scrapped the cluster and sold the parts on eBay. My electricity bill dropped about $100 a month afterwards. Again, I wish them luck.

    --
    khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.