Fwd: BB status and summary

[Derek Martin]

I thought this might be of interest to some on the list who are not
members of BLU.  Some folks on BLU  (www.blu.org) have got it in their
head to build a cluster (e.g. Beowulf).  Information follows.
Some important questions remaining:

  - Will it be a virtual cluster?
  - if not, where will it live?
  - what will it DO?
  - who will care for it?
  - etc.

If this sounds interesting, see Jeff's summary below, and the related
threads in the BLU archives.

----- Forwarded message from Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org> -----

From: Jeff Kinz <jkinz at kinz.org>
To: blug <discuss at blu.org>
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 13:15:08 -0400
Subject: BB status and summary
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i
X-Original-Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 13:15:08 -0400

SUMMARY:
Already enough to build a small cluster. (if Mark's machines have ram.)

STILL NEED:
Good clean space.
Racks or shelving (shelving better? most pc's not rack mount)
Money for power & cooling unless donated w/space.
application candidates.

Can we trade services/training for power?

NODES:
Each "node" needs (at a minimum):
Case, PS,  MB w/CPU
NIC
boot device (1 of floppy, HD, CD, PXE NIC, etherboot NIC)
RAM

NOTE:
Diskless machines can network boot from a floppy, using LTSP server
and 1 hard drive can service several machines via NFS .
(LTSP is a great package, recommend LTSP and OpenMosix together)



INVENTORY OFFERINGS:
BB (Big BLU) stuff mentioned so far:

markw at obscured:
a couple industrial grade 100MB switches, 
a spool of CAT5, connectors, & crimpers
5-6 boxes (~700 MHz PII/III). All have network, video,
and a LOT of spare parts.

drew at obscured
several Dell Optiplex GX1 (PII ~700MHz) boxes, need SDRAM and hard drive.

markw at obscured:
a few sticks of PC100 and PC133 memory (SDRAM)
a bunch of old hard disks, some at least a few gigs.

Brendan <mailinglist at obscured>
a few 68/50-pin SCSI hard drives 
a few video cards.
host a class about "Cluster Building". 

Derek Martin 
seasoned sysadmin.  
a high-speed Internet connection
a reasonable amount of spare time.

jkinz at obscured
A barn, w/dirt and dust
A 12 port 3com Linkbuilder, 100MBit    15 watt
A 16 port US-Robotics (nee 3com) TotalSwitch 10/100 MBit 1 amp

nmeyers at obscured
"portable air conditioner" - the kind you wheel around and
vent out a window.
-- 
Linux/Open Source.  Now all your base belongs to you, for free.
============================================================
Idealism:  "Realism applied over a longer time period"

Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
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----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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