The Official TeAm Anandtech BEOWULF Thread. Donations Welcome.

[Shuxclams]

Since we had "Crack" Racks so long ago with the RC5 project and so on I thought I would put the idea out there for a TeAm Beowulf as a actually working project and as a great PR tool for SETI@HOME, both for Anandtech as well as the SETI@HOME project itself. We need some things to do this. The concept I had was a pure homogeneous Beowulf like what U of Kentucky created only built on Abit BP6's with Celerons running at 550MHz.

The dream... (26GHz Beowulf)
24 - BP6
48 - 366@550
24x128MB PC100
96 - 10/100 NIC's
24 - 200w PS
24 - Floppies
24 - PCI VGA cards
A total of 97 10/100 ports of combined switches.
Enough KVM's to run it
Keyboards & mice

[/b]==============================================================+]

1. We need a Name for it. Check this thread.... >>>LINK<<<

2. There is a PayPal Account under TeAm_AT_Beowulf@scarieville.com, if you dont have hardware or shelving help with purchases.

3. The email account for it to run under is also TeAm_AT_Beowulf@scarieville.com.

4. We need technicians to help build configure and maintain a Linux Beowulf cluster of this size.

5. [/b]LANMAN has offered to host it provided he gets some support on shelving materials.

[/b]==============================================================+

Project managers are as follows:

engineer
LANMAN
networkman
shuxclams

Please feel free to contact any of them with donations, Ideas and suggestions

[/b]==============================================================+

Here are the Items we have now:

shuxclams:
2 - BP6
4 - Celeron 366@550
4 - HS/F
1 - 4MB Trident PCI video card
1 - 4MB S3 Trio64 DX PCI video card
1 - 2MB Cirrus Logic VGA PCI
3 - 256MB PC100
1 - 128MB PC100
1 - 24x CD-ROM
1 - FDD Drive

Bot2600:
2 - Celeron 366@550

CADkindaGUY:
1 - BP6
2 - Celeron 366@550
2 - HS/F
1 - 128/256MB PC???
1 - 145w PS

LANMAN:
1 - BP6
2 - Celeron 366@550
2 - HS/F
1 - 256/512MB PC???

networkman:
16 - Intel OEM nics(various Intel chipsets)
2 - Asound nics(Realtek 8139 chipset)
2 - SMC nics(Digital 21140 chipset)
1 - Asound 16port rackmount 10/100 switch
6 - Magitronic 2meg PCI vid(S3 Trio64 chipset)
4 - Magitronic 2meg PCI vid(Trident 9680-1 chipset)
12 - Mitsumi/Newtronic 1.44 floppy drives
7 - ATS150 ATX power supplies

ShotGunSteve
? - 128MB RAM

Zim Hosein
2 - 128MB PC133

Migroo
3 - NIC's

Freewolf:
3 - PCI VGA cards

Eltano1:
2 - 200w PS

bunker:
1 - PCI VGA Card
1 - 128MB PC100

bob970:
2 - ???w PS

muttley:
2 - 200+w PS

engineer
4 - PCI video cards
1 - 64MB PC100
1 - 32MB PC100

[/b]==============================================================+

Donations made:
$25 - Engineer
$20 - CADkindaGUY

[/b]==============================================================+
[/b]Total
4 - BP6 setups with HS/F's and Celeron 366@550 plus enough memory for each.
4 - Power supplies
X - NIC's
8 - Video cards
1 - CD ROM
6 - Floppy Drives

[/b]==============================================================+

Things we'll need:
BP6's w/366@550
Memory (128MB DIMMS PC100)
10/100 switches
Floppy drives
Video cards

[/b]==============================================================+

Any help or suggestions are highly welcome.



SHUX

 

[CADsortaGUY]

I've toyed with the idea before but never had a good application to build a cluster(never thought i'd gain anything by putting SETI on one). If SETI will run on a cluster(which I'm assuming it will) will we gain anything over letting them all run independantly? Or would it just be a *BRAG* type thing?

CADkindaGUY

 

[Engineer]

Hmmm...?

Don't know about cluster, but after reading some of the diskless crunching (floppy only, I think) that BBR and others are doing...I've been looking into it.

Linux Boot disk already SETUP for SETI with Ramdisk...and network drivers too...

Originally found here in this thread at BBR....

This is what they have based their CRUNCHENSTEIN rack (in progress) on.

Just a little clutter for this thread

/me looks around for stuff to donate, but have used so much stuff lately.....

Hmmmm

 

[Shuxclams]

CADkindaGUY,
It is more of a *BRAG* type thing, I realize that it would'nt be the greatest for SETI since each CPU would have/need its own Work Unit, but I think it would do a couple things;

1) Stir more intrest in TeAm SETI from outside users as a marketing tool.
2) Provide the TeAm with more Wu's
3) Involve more users from Anandtech in a cool TeAm effort.
4) Be a great PR tool for the SETI@HOME community as a whole.

There are so many great people involved with TeAm Anantech that this is totally do-able, from great Hardware people to qualified *NIX admins and networking Guru's.
I am not concerned with what other people are doing as much as I am in creating a real BEOWULF or Linux Cluster dedicated to SETI@HOME. Seems to me that everyone is about ready to retire their BP6's, they would make a great MoBo to build it with. Sure you'd only see 2 Wu's per a CPU, but still...... its scalable...






SHUX

 

[Freewolf]

I have a bunch of p166s with mb and hs/f if they could be of some help.

 

[Swanny]

I've got a BP6 w/ 2 celery 300s @ 500, but I don't have enough money right now to replace them if I gave them away

 

[Shuxclams]

Freewolf, hose would be great for a secondary cluster if you had a large quantity. It would be nice to stay away from having to use MOSIX and go with a true ?x550MHz machine.









SHUX

 

[Kris]

Why stay away from mosix shux?

I don't have any bp6's but a number of 810/c400s I was investigating using mosix with.

 

[Freewolf]

I think I have about 8 of them laying around

 

[Shuxclams]

Only reason to use MOSIX is because of mix matched boards IMO, would be nice if it was homogeniuos (sp).












SHUX

 

[Postman]

I have diskless linux farm running. If you have questions, shoot.

 

[Confused]

Hell, i've just changed my main machine from Athlon 1.0@1.467 in K7S5A to my BP6 with 2x 366@500 (if it'll ever run stable now!)

If someone has a BP6 without CPUs that they would donate, then i should be able to donate a pair of 400s, tho if i can get another cheap BP6 for myself then i will keep them and run them myself

 

[bot2600]

I don't have a BP6, but I have 2 366s that run stable at 550 and a third that I believe does as well that I no longer use.

 

[Adul]

i have 2 366 to donate for tha cause. they dont run at 550 though. i think the most i got was 415


<- post 22222

 

[CADsortaGUY]

alright...I'll cave and pledge 1 of my BP6's to the cause. I do have 2 more that I could "donate" when I build replacements 1 is hosting my ftp and the other is doing the TACO forum and SETIQ. Maybe I'll head over to the Hot Deals forum and see if I can't find another deal on a mobo or 2...I hit that KG7 hot deal a couple weeks ago - ~$43 shipped BRAND NEW! My XP1600 is running like a top on it

WU!!WU!!WU!!

What does that put us at for boards/CPUs/etc pledged?

Oh yeah - mine "pledge" has HSFs, CPUs (366s@550), RAM (i think 128 but maybe 256), and board. If needed I could send the 145W PSU that runs it too.

CADkindaGUY

 

[PeterN]

If someone is serious about building a beowulf for DC (whatever project) than he should check out the Alinka website.
It's a company that specialises in cluster software for DC and Webservers.
There is a special control panel and command center, that lets you configure subclusters within the main cluster. Every subcluster can be assigned another job (or project in our case).

On their download page there are old version of their software available. You should have lots of experience in Linux, but if so this software could be of some use.

Peter.

 

[LANMAN]

I have one BP6 to pledge. Heat sinks, CPU's, it's all there.

I think there's 256M (might even be 512 :Q) also ready to go. Let me know where you want me to ship it.

Do I get a donation receipt too?

--LANMAN

 

[Shuxclams]

Can we get a list together of the things that we would have and things we need, including someone crazy enough to house it.

LANMAN, are those CPU's 366@550's? Bot has good Celly's if we can find another BP6 for them. If I count right thats 4 BP6's with HS/F and memory. Would be nice if we could get NIC's for all of them. Would really like to try the paralell cluster configuration which requires 4 NIC's per a node, If need be I would spring for all the NIC's.

Another thing is should we get an email address for this rack to (1) Crack under, (2) set up a PayPal account to defer energy costs and any additional monies for the building?








SHUX

 

[Shuxclams]

OK,

shuxclams:
2 - BP6
4 - Celeron 366@550
4 - HS/F
2 - Linkskey LKF-5100+ 10/100 NIC's
2 - 3COM 905B-TX 10/100 NIC's
3 - 300w Enlight PS
1 - 4MB Trident PCI video card
1 - 4MB S3 Trio64 DX PCI video card
3 - 256MB PC100
1 - 128MB PC100
1 - 24x CD-ROM

Bot2600:
2 - Celeron 366@550

CADkindaGUY:
1 - BP6
2 - Celeron 366@550
2 - HS/F
1 - 128/256MB PC???
1 - 145w PS

LANMAN:
1 - BP6
2 - Celeron 366@550
2 - HS/F
1 - 256/512MB PC???

networkman:
? - NIC's
6 - Video Cards
6 - Floppy drives

Total
4 - BP6 setups with HS/F's and Celeron 366@550 plus enough memory for each.
4 - Power supplies
X - NIC's
8 - Video cards
1 - CD ROM
6 - Floppy Drives

Things we'll need:
BP6's w/366@550
Memory (128MB DIMMS PC100)
10/100 switches
Floppy drives
Video cards
Someone to host it <-------BIG DEAL HERE

Postman and a few other people have experiance running something like this and I am sure that others have full fledged Beowulf's configuration in their experiance as well.

Also the question about a PayPal Account to defer electricity costs and an email address (TeAm_Beowulf@xxxxxx.com?) for the SETI account.





SHUX

 

[networkman]

Being networkman I can pretty much take care of most of the 10/100 network card needs! Really.

I've still got some floppy drives and video cards here too.. say a half-dozen of each.

Sorry, I can't host it.

 

[Mardeth]

Well I have: BH-II (not totally sure about the name), 500Mhz Celeron, Voodoo3 3000 (thought I rather keep it but if you really need Ill send it) and 128mb sdram to donate for the cause it would be really cool to see my parts in action on the other side of the world .

 

[LANMAN]

Originally posted by: Shuxclams
Can we get a list together of the things that we would have and things we need, including someone crazy enough to house it.

LANMAN, are those CPU's 366@550's?



SHUX

Yes.


_______________


If your looking at somewhere to host it, I have a remote site that doesn't have alot of traffic (Internet) and extra room in a nice cool basement. I can check on the energy cost thing, but if I can swing it, I'll even plug in my 24 port hub to the cluster.

What do you think?

--LANMAN

 

[Shuxclams]

LANMAN has offered to host the Beowulf, we would need to help out with racks and shelving. Thanks LANMAN!













SHUX

 

[Confused]

Asked for sticky will see what happens


Confused

 

[SoulAssassin]

Thinking bout upgrading my DC to a single 1800, if I decide I can probably throw in a BP6 w 2x533's and a handful of RAM. Out of room on the KVM switch and can't find anywhere else to put it (in the bathroom mounted with a swivel around keyboard is tempting but I can see the weird looks from the women).