Can you use a computer without a HDD and OS? Like network it and use it for SETI cracking?

[KDOG]

I was thinking that if all you were going to use a computer for was cracking SETI, could you just, have it set up without a HDD or OS, network it up to your "main" pc, and use the Proc and memory to run SETI, RC5, etc.?

 

[samgau]

Would work if you are using a terminal server....
we have a few here at work... dumb web browsing stations (p166) with no HD which boots off the network from a Linux box (RH7.2 + LTSP package) btw LTSP = Linux Terminal Server Project .. check it out...

Works great... right now we have 8 workstations running off a Piii 450 with lots of ram... 🙂

 

[jcmkk]

I've heard of people runing Linux off of just a CD ROM disk. They also make floppy distrubutions of Linux. You may want to search around.

 

[bozo1]

Terminal Services defeats the purpose - the seti work units would be run by the CPU on the server, not the diskless workstation.

 

[arcas]

If you have a network to boot from, it's possible (even common) to boot over the network. During the 2nd distributed.net
DES cracking contest (the one that ran for about a month), a friend of mine had a "box" that consisted of a mobo hanging from
the ceiling with fishing line. It had no local storage...it booted via tftp and mounted root over NFS.

 

[samgau]

bozo1 > No... not necessarily... there is a setting called local apps... and what it does is run a piece of software (eg: seti) on the client CPU and not the server... i've spent the last 2 months working on a project which consists of replacing dumb terminals with diskless linux clients... its working pretty well.. 🙂