Geek?
Oh dear, I think I may be becoming a computer geek. It's all the fault of my former BOFH, Bruce, who gave me a Knoppix CD a while back. This, in case you don't know allows you to run a full Debian Linux install direct from CD without having to touch a thing on your hard drive. It is an excellent way of demoing the power and benefits of Linux without messing about with your Windows install.
It detects all the hardware and configures itself accordingly. I've found it very handy for booting dead machines where I suspected Windows problems. If the hardware is OK then Knoppix should boot with network connections, DVD players, modems etc all working.
Then after briefly mentioning to Bruce that I was hoping to build a render farm with all the spare machines I have in the home office he directed me to ClusterKnoppix. This takes the Knoppix CD and adds cluster software to automatically manage the CPU and memory load across a LAN cluster. Fantastic. It uses the tried and tested Openmosix protocol. The joy of trying this out on perfectly working Windows machines just by popping in a CD has to be seen to be believed.
My LAN currently consists of a PIV 3Ghz, a Dual PIII 1Ghz, a PIII 1Ghz and an Athlon 700 Mhz. Download the CD ISO image from ClusterKnoppix, burn 4CDs, pop them in the drives and reboot to find a fully configured Linux Cluster literally throbbing with processing power.
Next, I want to do a HD install of ClusterKnoppix on the PIII 1Ghz machine (with dual booting to Windows 2000) so I can configure and save the changes. This will then become the master for rendering my Blender animations across the network. So, do you think this makes me a geek?
posted by Ricky Dee at
3:57 PM
2 Comments:
Most definitely. But as I have at least some clue as to what your on about what does that make me?
By
TalkRhubarb, at 18 September 2004 13:42
This is most worrying. My definition of a geek is somebody who tinkers with computers all day but actually produces nothing from them. At the moment I'm wasting my time trying to get "cool" things working like the LinuxCluster while not actually creating anything of any value (therefore a definite geek). I suppose the knowledge is valuable but I need to get back on track with my business venture.
As for you, as you're a friend of Ian you're labelled a geek by association whether you deserve it or not ;-)
Right, I'm off to hack the microwave and see if I can turn it into a functioning XBox or somesuch. Ian, can you help?
By
Ricky Dee, at 19 September 2004 11:39
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