newbie: 16-node 500Mbps design

[Mark Hahn]

> > I think 5 ethernet cards per node working is pushing it.  Will you even be
> > able to stuff that many onto your motherboards?  If you can, getting linux to
> > work properly with that many cards, generating lots and lots of interrupts, is
> > going to be a challenge, if not impossible.  Even with dual fast ethernet,
> > getting maximal performance out of linux TCP is not easy.  Check the list
> > archives about TCP stalls to see the problems people are having.

there seems to be quite a lot of urban legendry here.  I certainly
don't see any "TCP stalls" or know anyone who does.  perhaps on crappy
old 2.2 kernels, but anyone who runs them deserves what they get.

> toolboxes, and less than 5% of total cost.  The idea was to say "thank
> you" for the great OS.  If there is a better way to spend those 5% in

but saying "thank you" to mandrake is a bit silly, since they're 
just packagers.