> As long as they don't come anywhere near my BIOS...
So long as you can boot from CD, this KNOPPIX distro won't touch anything.
We've got a few LAN boxes we're trying this on, and the only BIOS change we made was to allow booting without a keyboard 'cause we're too lazy to cart a keyboard/mouse around.
Perhaps its stupid only because you don't need a supercomputer, but 10 years ago it was stupid for you to own any computer because there was nothing you could do with it.
In a classic chicken and egg, as enough "stupid" people bought computers suddenly there was a market to write programs which made more people want to buy which created a bigger market, etc...
In any case, if you are a researcher who can't get supercomputer time -- you won't write codes that need them because they are useless. If you can get time, then you may choose to write some to support your research. So, if there is a way to get a cheap (even if it is sorta crappy) computer with lots of memory (even if it has poor scaling and efficiency), then that researcher can do things she couldn't do before. That, friend, is the point.
I think there are a lot of people who could do more science if they had a good cluster. But,
how can you justify the expense (considerable
for space, machinery, sysadm) without having applications that require it. How can you have applications that require a cluster if you don't have one? Again, its chicken and egg. FlashMob gives you a chance to build something to break the dependency chain and work up to a real supercomputer.
CLOWN looked like a cool hackfest, but it
isn't really isn't easily recreatable.
The "flash" in FlashMob is in its ability to
make one whenever you want.
Yea... With only 64Meg RAM, there wasn't
room for a big RAM-drive, so it had to
go on a drive.
It's interesting that it was a Debian install
like the KNOPPIX core though
First off... Go look at this site
http://www.heise.de/ix/artikel/E/1999/01/010/
By look at, I mean read it... in part it says
"After some adaptations, the necessary Linpack-
Benchmark ran on an Alpha subcluster with 48
nodes."
Note also that 60 of the machines were (then)
top-of-the-line DEC Alphas (I guess they only
had a 48 port top switch). This is not
"512 normal home PCs," unless Frau Blucher
happens to own an Alpha Server farm:-)
It also says,
"Many computers and the complete infrastructure
(switches and so on) came from sponsors."
Like: 50 Alpha's from Samsung, 5 4-way SMP Xeon servers, a lowly 2-way SMP Xeon server, etc..
128 PIII from SEH GmbH, etc...
So, well over half their machine was corporate
servers and not quite as heterogenous as "kb"
would have you think.
They also had to install Debian 2.0(!) on the
hardrives.
So, that wasn't a "spontaneous supercomputer with home machines." It was a bunch of
sysadmins in a hackfest.
The FlashMob boots off CD (no install to a hard
drive). Its plug and go. Reboot and you can
have your old Windoze box back. That's spontaneous.
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> As long as they don't come anywhere near my BIOS...
So long as you can boot from CD, this KNOPPIX distro won't touch anything.
We've got a few LAN boxes we're trying this on, and the only BIOS change we made was to allow booting without a keyboard 'cause we're too lazy to cart a keyboard/mouse around.
Perhaps its stupid only because you don't need a supercomputer, but 10 years ago it was stupid for you to own any computer because there was nothing you could do with it.
In a classic chicken and egg, as enough "stupid" people bought computers suddenly there was a market to write programs which made more people want to buy which created a bigger market, etc...
In any case, if you are a researcher who can't get supercomputer time -- you won't write codes that need them because they are useless. If you can get time, then you may choose to write some to support your research. So, if there is a way to get a cheap (even if it is sorta crappy) computer with lots of memory (even if it has poor scaling and efficiency), then that researcher can do things she couldn't do before. That, friend, is the point.
I think there are a lot of people who could do more science if they had a good cluster. But, how can you justify the expense (considerable for space, machinery, sysadm) without having applications that require it. How can you have applications that require a cluster if you don't have one? Again, its chicken and egg. FlashMob gives you a chance to build something to break the dependency chain and work up to a real supercomputer.
CLOWN looked like a cool hackfest, but it isn't really isn't easily recreatable. The "flash" in FlashMob is in its ability to make one whenever you want.
Yea... With only 64Meg RAM, there wasn't room for a big RAM-drive, so it had to go on a drive. It's interesting that it was a Debian install like the KNOPPIX core though
First off... Go look at this site http://www.heise.de/ix/artikel/E/1999/01/010/ By look at, I mean read it... in part it says "After some adaptations, the necessary Linpack- Benchmark ran on an Alpha subcluster with 48 nodes." Note also that 60 of the machines were (then) top-of-the-line DEC Alphas (I guess they only had a 48 port top switch). This is not "512 normal home PCs," unless Frau Blucher happens to own an Alpha Server farm :-)
It also says,
"Many computers and the complete infrastructure
(switches and so on) came from sponsors."
Like: 50 Alpha's from Samsung, 5 4-way SMP Xeon servers, a lowly 2-way SMP Xeon server, etc..
128 PIII from SEH GmbH, etc...
So, well over half their machine was corporate
servers and not quite as heterogenous as "kb"
would have you think.
They also had to install Debian 2.0(!) on the
hardrives.
So, that wasn't a "spontaneous supercomputer with home machines." It was a bunch of
sysadmins in a hackfest.
The FlashMob boots off CD (no install to a hard
drive). Its plug and go. Reboot and you can
have your old Windoze box back. That's spontaneous.