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2 old computers


ParMan

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i have two old computer I'm not sure of their spec they have not been turned on yet, or even plugged in. one was from my wife's work and ones was given to me from my parents. i wanted to hook them together to run as one computer and add on more later when i get them kinda like a mini supercomputer. i also want to turn these computers into a sever to run my internet, printer and files. i have plenty of external hard dive space so im not worried about that I'm just not 100% sure on what the best approach would be. i have heard of windows cluster servers and also read some thinks on Linux all my other computers run off windows one is windows 7 and the others are windows xp i didn't know if this would effect running Linux or not. Im just new to this and though it would be interesting to do let me know. your input is greatly appreciated thanks in advance.

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Debian runs clustering very nicely, check out the post on the Hak5 Beowulf cluster project.

http://hak5.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10608

i read the post and it seems they really only talked about Linux. To be honest with you I'm not very familiar with Linux. I'm afraid i will mess something up or not be able to configure it right. If i do make a cluster with linux will i still be able to network to my windows machines?

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i read the post and it seems they really only talked about Linux. To be honest with you I'm not very familiar with Linux. I'm afraid i will mess something up or not be able to configure it right. If i do make a cluster with linux will i still be able to network to my windows machines?

Well.....consider this a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the open source world. Yes you can network your Wind0wz boxes with a Linux network but whip out the man files from the Debian downloads that you are going to use for the cluster and start a reading because we are all about you helping you then us helping you with the really hard parts

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Well.....consider this a fantastic opportunity to learn more about the open source world. Yes you can network your Wind0wz boxes with a Linux network but whip out the man files from the Debian downloads that you are going to use for the cluster and start a reading because we are all about you helping you then us helping you with the really hard parts

i will also post this on the other topic but i found this when i was searching though the web though it might be helpful to other people too.

http://debianclusters.cs.uni.edu/index.php/Main_Page

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okay i got one of my computers up and running though the other computer when i turn it one it says that something is wrong with the xserver configuration i am able to login under terminal only what would be the best way to fix this im running Debian the latest version.

first error:

Failed to start the Xserver (your graphical interface).  It is likely that it is not set up correctly.  would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?

if i say yes:

it says before reporting problems check http://wiki.x.org to make sure you have the latest version.

okay how to go about that. then it shows me a bunch of hex code and says

Ring end
space:24 wanted 32

fatal server error:
lockup

i just did a

X -version

i cant got x.org x server is 1.4.2 and when i run the install it tells me that xserver-xorg is the newest version. though the website it told me to check has version 7.4 out.

It will be of little practical use for the tasks you listed but a fun endeavor nonetheless.

thats right im thinking of it as an learning experience. though i do not get to spend as much time as i would like on it im doing the best i can.

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Ok I have seen linux clusters but not windows.. please help me understand this..

So if i have 3 PC's that are all 4GB ram 100GB HD,ect.. with linux cluster it would be the same as running a computer that had 12GB ram 300GB ram , ect.. every thing times 3, so it would be like a super computer. If i set a cluster up like that is it crazy to have other terminals in the area for people to use?

Im guessing a Windows cluster will not work like this? it is more of a network and each PC holds it own unless controlled by a windows server? Persay I can not make a super computer useing windows and 3 pretty new pc's? meaning i cant make all 3 pc's act as one computer like transformers or something?

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No, its like running 3 computers with 4gb of RAM and 100gb of space in a cluster. What happens is a job, like rendering a scene, is split up into chunks and sent to each of these computers individually. They each do 1/3rd of a scene and send the result back to be compiled into a finished scene. Clusters work well for particular jobs and poorly for other jobs. You can also use them for webfarms to load balance serving data between multiple machines. This gets more complicated when you add shared storage, which allows all the clustered machines to work on the same data.

However, what a cluster can actually do is fairly limited, only certain tasks are worth it. For most home machines, and given your level of knowledge you should focus on learning the basics of running a server before trying to do something complicated.

The problem with homebrew clusters is that the node interconnects are very slow compared to RAM or HDD's, which means there is a bottleneck when data needs to be moved from one node to another node. Commerical clusters use things like 10GigE at the low end, and Infinniband, Infinihost and Myrinet if you have more money to spend. http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/124/34/

Cluster Monkey had a lot of good resources on the topic. Such as this FAQ.

Also, a linux server doesn't need a gui, remove X and learn the command line.

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