Beowoof: a Beowulf Cluster with Power Mac 6100s running Yellow Dog Linux
Motivation

Introduction

Motivation

Hardware

Software

Configuration

Installing Linux

Progress

Projects

Notes

Background

I had mentioned the idea to John Lewis of building a Beowulf cluster to fool around with, so he gave me a stack of Power Macintosh 6100/66 computers. These aren't fast machines: a single G4 can outrun them all without working up a sweat. What they will accomplish, however, is to help me learn the basics of how to install, configure, and administer Linux, how to set up, configure, and administer a Beowulf cluster, and how to write parallel-processing utilities and applications.

My justification for this approach comes from question 11 of the Beowulf Mailing List FAQ:

Q: Should I build a cluster of these 100 386s? [1999-05-13]
A: If it's OK with you that it'll be slower than a single Celeron-333 machine, sure. Great way to learn.

This work may become the basis of a CoolCS Linux for Beowulf. In the meantime, I'm reading up on what it will take to do this project.

I may put the cluster on the outside of the firewall and open it up for use by friends and people who ask me nicely. I have a 200kbps DSL connection with a handful of IP addresses; I could easily dedicate one of them to the cluster. E-mail me if you want an account on this machine.