can linux run multiple pc's as one?

[stikpin 0]

hello all, i am new to linux and am liking what i see ,

i would like to know if i can somehow link all my old pc's together and use linux to run them simultaneously as a single unit so i can utilise several cpu's to run wireless base station and music server ,so i can use a portable pc to listen to musicwhile i'm out on my property also check on the house via webcams set up around the place

[blueworm 0]

Yes people do awnser but patience is still a virtue!

Anyhow I will be honest I found your question a little ambiguos, or this could also mean I have

no idea.

But here goes. The awnser is Yes.

Linux can do everything and more than other operating systems. at least where Networking is concerned.

[stikpin 0]

Quote:

Yes people do awnser but patience is still a virtue!
Anyhow I will be honest I found your question a little ambiguos, or this could also mean I have
no idea.
But here goes. The awnser is Yes.
Linux can do everything and more than other operating systems. at least where Networking is concerned.

thanks for answering me

[chrisb62 0]

yes i think its called something like a beowolf, i have no idea how to set such a thing up but yes it is possible

[stikpin 0]

8) cool thanx chrisb62 do you know much about beowolf?

[Tekchip 0]

well beowulf is one of the most commonly used clusters but openmosix is quick takeing the top spot. You can read more about clustering at http://www.openmosix.org If your running some flavor of redhat I got at least the master server working by simply installing a pair of rpm packages. I never did take the time to hook up additional machines to see if it was truely working but I assume it was because the monitoring tool was properly showing cpu and memory usage for the machine.

 

One thing you should know is that most of the easier clustering options only deligate individual processes to the best possible machine for the job. It doesn't do true parallel processing. Basically if your 'server' machine is the most powerful of the bunch and you start a program in wine then that program will be contained in that one process on that one machine and will never move. In other words you wont see a performance increase. But if you run a program like the Maya rendering software for linux. That acctually spawns more than one process. Those processes would then be delegated out to the best possible machines for the process.

 

If you want true parallel processing then you'll probably need to find some other projects around the web. Try a google search. In my limited experience these type of clusters appear to be a lot more involved. You have to recompile kernels, edit large sums of config files and do all kinds of crazy complicated things. May be try openmosix and if that goes together easily for you and you feel comfortable then you could move on to the more complicated versions of clusters.

 

Good luck with it!

[krauskopf 0]

linux can do this, but i doubt that clustering is what you want.

 

clustering is used to distribute processing.

 

many distrobutions of linux install apache, the super-awesome open source webserver, by default. using this, video4linux, and a webcam program, any of the machines (assuming compatibility with webcam... usually pretty good) can serve webcam images.

 

as for music, i guess you want to take storage from each of them and make one big virtual drive. this may be a little tricky.

 

it wouldn't be too hard to have a few seperate storage volumes, one for each machine.

 

for example, on your wireless device, you could have mounted (NFS or Samba or something else) :

 

/mnt/mp3a

/mnt/mp3b

/mnt/mp3c

 

and then web browse your way over to

 

http://192.168.0.3/webcam

http://192.168.0.4/webcam

http://192.168.0.5/webcam

 

or you could even have one sort of 'main' computer, and mount the others from it.

 

/mnt/mp3/a

/mnt/mp3/b

/mnt/mp3/c

 

and

 

http://192.168.0.2/webcam1

http://192.168.0.2/webcam2

http://192.168.0.2/webcam3

 

and you could even have all three (or more) images show up on one page

 

i know that linux can span hard drives into one big volume, and i would expect that through the same means you could span network mounts, but i have no experience here.

 

-john