hardware & install question

[Dominic Baines]

Forrest Hoffman wrote:

> Derek:
>
> You can probably squeeze Linux on an 80 MB drive, but 200 MB would be more
> comfortable, especially since some space will be used for swap.

ReadHat distributions seem to have a problem doing real small installations but
would fit without too much problem, Slackware would easily fit inside 80MB A, D
and N disk sets. But if size and obtaining HDD's are a problem you could
(performance may/would stink!!) run a ROOT NFS system off the larger HDD server
to NFS mount the remote systems as 'diskless' and use the local 80MB HDD for
DOS ethernet card support drivers etc (v small partition) and the rest as a
local swap partition.

>  In
> addition, 8 MB of RAM will work, but if you want to run code on this thing,
> you'll have more luck with at least 16 MB of memory.

RAM is so cheap these days, old 486's probably 4x4MB 30 -pin simms shouldn't
cost more than £10 each new. 72pin, put 1 16MB in again less than £15.

>  If you don't care
> about network traffic, you could hang all the nodes on the public network,
> but this usually makes a slow network much slower.  As usual, everything
> depends on the problem you are trying to solve.

I think this is a learning exercise - isn't it so performance may not be a
major issue anyway ?

Dominic


> Check out our cluster at http://www.esd.ornl.gov/facilities/beowulf
>
> We're slowing replacing 486's with Pentiums.
>
> Forrest
>
> HORTON, DEREK K wrote:
>
> > Hi
> > I am a newbie to the Beowulf project.  I have three old 486's with 8
> > megs of ram a piece four network cards and and a SMC tigerhub (10baseT).
> > In the machine I am planning to run as the master I have a 300 MB hard
> > drive but I may be able to get a one gig scsi for it.  The rest of the
> > machines have at least a 80mg hard drive.  I understand that the master
> > needs to have two network cards (one set for the cluster one set for the
> > outside world which is a winblows 95 machine here at my house) so I
> > guess these should be on a different subnet mask.  Does all this hardwar
> > e appear to be enough to get a cluster going?  I know that my network
> > cards are linux compatible.  I know this will definitly not be the
> > fastest thing ever created but I am a computer science student and I
> > figured it would be a pretty cool experiment.  Plus I had these 486's
> > just laying around collecting dust.
> > So I guess my first questions are : Does my hardware meet the minimal
> > requirements if any?  and What all do I need to compile into the kernel
> > on the master?
> >
> > Thanks for your time and answers.
> > Derek Horton stu2997@atuvm.atu.edu
>
> --
> Forrest Hoffman                     forrest@esd.ornl.gov
> Environmental Sciences Division     http://www.esd.ornl.gov/~forrest
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