Linux Advice
29 Nov 2006 23:44:35 UTC
Topic 192134
(moderation:
Hello Everyone. I guess I am looking for some advice, as I am sure you can already see. I am planning on grouping several older computers (ABT 300MHZ) together, and loading Linux on all the systems to run E@H. I have little experience with Linux, but much experience, in all MS PLatforms. I am looking for a Linux platform, that can be easily implemented across these computers. That will use little CPU Time, to allow E@H to have the majority. So, any suggestions from anyone who has used Linux OS's would be very helpful. And any other advice in this area. THANKS!
d3xt3r.net
Linux Advice
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I am using SuSE Linux 10.1 on an old 400 MHz Pentium II. I am running E@H, SETI@home and QMC@home, with the highest share (300) given to E@H, while the other two share a 100. I have no bad results and can meet the deadlines.
Tullio
Edit: I use BOINC 5.6.4. The graphics windows has problems, especially with QMC@home, where it produces a huge stderr.txt file. Einstein is not affected.
RE: Hello Everyone. I guess
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There are several I have used:
Debian: easy to install, but that's also a disadvantage: it's not optimized. And needs a lot of disk space
Gentoo: a little bit harder, but doable if you follow the installation instructions. You can optimize it to squeeze everything out of your boxes. But also requires a lot of disk space.
Damn Small Linux: you don't need to install it. As its name implies it's very small. So more resources are left for crunching. Problem: they don't use the latest kernel, what gives a loss in speed. But it's great on older machines.
Knoppix: runs from CD as well, but a newer kernel is used. But it has more packages resulting in a loss of resources. Be sure to use fluxbox as window manager (check the cheat codes on the homepage) to prevent unnecessary loading of a too large window manager.
I'd give Damn Small Linux a first try as you're having quite old boxes. If you don't have a CD player, it should be possible to do an installation on flashdisk or harddisk. Check out their homepage. Another advantage (for the beginner): you don't need to install, and it's portable to many different computers.
I have no experience with SUSE, though.
For any distribution: most users are quite helpfull. Look on the forums and/or subscribe to mailing lists.
Good luck!
Bert
Somnio ergo sum
G'day Dex If you decide to
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G'day Dex
If you decide to use DSL, there's a HOWTO here . It's aimed at linux newbies, with windows experience, who want to set up one or more "headless crunchers".
If not DSL then maybe PuppyLinux (and the HOWTO ) or Fedora Core
Thank you everyone for your
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Thank you everyone for your help. This information will most def be useful. If anyone else has any tips, you can email me if you like.
d3xt3r.net
On a 4 cpu 700Mhz Compaq
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On a 4 cpu 700Mhz Compaq DL580 I need a Linux flavour that uses all the cpus for maximum boincing but which can be installed with no Linux experience.
It seems that Linux needs two hard drives to install. One of the problems I'm encountering is the partitioning using two logical drives run by the raid controller.
Is there a Linux strain either live or installed which can do both without command line knowledge?
Robert
RE: On a 4 cpu 700Mhz
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Linux needs only one hard drive. I have Win98SE on my primary master and SuSE 10.1 on my secondary master. The Grub bootloader allows me to choose which OS I want to use. But I have only 1 CPU (a PII Deschutes) and have no experience with more CPUs. The more recent SuSE release is 10.3 which you can download from OpenSuSE.
Tullio
Tullio, Thanks for that
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Tullio,
Thanks for that but OpenSuSe says it's partition program can't work with the partition I've got i.e. one big logical drive made of four drives.
And Ubuntu and Red Hat also seem to have trouble. After installing each of those one way or another they don't have any success starting up with error messages in Linux lingo which usually say something is not found. That is disappointing since HP/Compaq say Red Hat 7:1 will work on the DL580.
So rather than go through a long online analysis I was hoping to be told which Linux will use four cpus and can be got going easily.
Any tips anyone?
Auto
To be able to use multiple
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To be able to use multiple CPUs you must have SMP enabled in Linux, so your first task is to look for and download the version with SMP enabled. Although that should be easy as most Linux distros come with SMP enabled these days, even if you install it on single CPUs only.
Now, as for you wanting to repartition part of the hard drive.. make sure you do not repartition/reformat any partition that possibly holds the BIOS (and other startup) data that's needed for your HP/Compaq.
And for the rest follow this page and these pages.
Now most distros have got some kind of Wiki available these days. For instance, SimplyMepis Wiki, which shows you what to do and where to properly get help.