parallel cluster builds?

[bud]

I was wondering whether anyone can tell me about experiences of building Gentoo on a cluster.

I suppose that Mosix people must have done this routnely? How easy is it to set up Mosix? What are the caveats?

I also found PVM Gmake http://freshmeat.net/projects/pvmgmake which seems to use the ordinary GNU Make together with PVM (the Parallel Virtual Machine). I believe that PVM should not be too difficult to set up and should work on any kinds of kernels (no patches as in Mosix). Anybody tried this out? What are the possible traps? I assume that all nodes should use the same version of gcc?

Rock Linux [ur]http://www.rocklinux.org[/url] (another source distribution) has a specific cluster build http://www.rocklinux.org/sources/Documentation/BUILD-CLUSTER that is quite interesting. May be interesting to have something similar for Gentoo.

Looking forward to your thoughts and experiences!

--bud

[cluster2600]

have you tried the mosix kernel when installing gentoo ?

feedback about gentoo + clusters is very welcome
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cyberdyne systems

[bud]

Haven't tried anything so far. Still working on the first Gentoo machine... I'm just frustrated thinking of going through the same slow process on my other machines (with different processors)--so I was hoping there is an attractive solution to use more machines (mine are several but slow ones..).

cheers
--bud

[The Shadow Surfer]

I have just got 3 Compaq DeskPro 2000 (2 233Mhz and 1 200Mhz, all have 265ram) form my work (they don't need whem any more), so I'll make an Linux Cluset experiment useing this 3 compaq's (my labtop (600Mhz 64ram) will from time to time proberly be join and leaving the cluster)

I have searched the net allot for the need info, and I think I will begin buliding my first cluster some time next week!!!

I will ofcause use Gentoo Linux as OS, and proberly usering the Openmosaix-kernel in portages... I have NEVER before made a cluster.

The plan (as it is now) is first make a cluster that have a primeri server, that load-balancing the work load on all the servers (it self include) then make a cluster that act as if it where one big server, and none primeri server, so that the cluster does not stop working if the former primeri server dies...

I will post have it goes... and I'll be happy to get some info about have to make the best cluster from you "Super Linux cluster Guru's" out there

[thegarbageman]

[eivinn]

Not that it's directly related to the initial question, but if you wan't to cut down your install-time when installing on many computers:

Do one install and mirror your partitions.

You'll have to use the same optimizations and change the hostname, but it's a hell lot faster than compiling the same on 2+ computers.

[syadnom]

pick the lowest common denominator in proc and build for that on the fastest machine, but build everything binary. Once your up and running install rsync server. When you install on the other machines, use your first machine as the rsync server so that anything you have allready installed can use the pre-compiled binaries.

then, after your happy that your system is up in less than 3 weeks , install PVM GMake(linked in another post). then you can rebuild anything you would like for per machine performance improvedments and use the power of your cluster to compile.

[phong]

I don't think this relates to the author's question, but other people viewing this thread might be interested - there's also distcc if all you want to do is distribute compilation across machines. There's a couple good threads on the subject here and here.
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