Background: I want to get the most CPU power out of a limited budget, for use with a research project involving signal processing. So far, apart from buying a refurbished Mac, the best solution seems to be building an OpenMOSIX cluster using Athlon-XPs.
I plan to use a "master" computer with a slightly faster CPU than the slaves, and fitted with a full-function m/board and peripherals. The master does not need to run LinuxBIOS, but it's existence means it should be easy to build kernel variants to test, without risking loss of machine functionality.
To keep the cost of each slave as low as possible, I want to eliminate all storage hardware from them, including floppy drive. This means booting Linux over NFS, and/or installing part of it in the BIOS chip. Hence my interest in LinuxBIOS. If I will need significant extra hardware to reliably install LinuxBIOS, I might just as well boot from floppy.
So far, I've identified a PC-Chips 810 board from one of my suppliers: http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=2050 which will be fitted with an Athlon-XP 2000+, some RAM, a case, a PSU, and nothing else whatsoever. Total slave cost in this configuration is under £160 including VAT.
Because this will be used in an academic Engineering department, there will probably be a Flash and/or EEPROM programmer lying around somewhere, that I can use rather than swapping BIOS chips.
Can anyone provide guidance on my chances of success, and how easy this is likely to be?
Jonathan,
Background: I want to get the most CPU power out of a limited budget, for use with a research project involving signal processing. So far, apart from buying a refurbished Mac, the best solution seems to be building an OpenMOSIX cluster using Athlon-XPs. I plan to use a "master" computer with a slightly faster CPU than the slaves, and fitted with a full-function m/board and peripherals. The master does not need to run LinuxBIOS, but it's existence means it should be easy to build kernel variants to test, without risking loss of machine functionality. To keep the cost of each slave as low as possible, I want to eliminate all storage hardware from them, including floppy drive. This means booting Linux over NFS, and/or installing part of it in the BIOS chip. Hence my interest in LinuxBIOS. If I will need significant extra hardware to reliably install LinuxBIOS, I might just as well boot from floppy. So far, I've identified a PC-Chips 810 board from one of my suppliers: http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=2050 which will be fitted with an Athlon-XP 2000+, some RAM, a case, a PSU, and nothing else whatsoever. Total slave cost in this configuration is under £160 including VAT. Because this will be used in an academic Engineering department, there will probably be a Flash and/or EEPROM programmer lying around somewhere, that I can use rather than swapping BIOS chips. Can anyone provide guidance on my chances of success, and how easy this is likely to be?
You can try our romimage for PC-Chips 810 + etherboot, then setup a dhcp server and proper elf kernel image. It should be enough to get you started. FYI, PCCHIPS also has a newer 810 http://www.pcchips.com.tw/product/M810DLUv52c.html which has ddr, but I don't think it is supported at the moment. Ollie, do you have any info about this board which is using 730D chipset.
-Andrew
On Mon, 2003-02-24 at 21:29, Andrew Ip wrote:
You can try our romimage for PC-Chips 810 + etherboot, then setup a dhcp server and proper elf kernel image. It should be enough to get you started. FYI, PCCHIPS also has a newer 810 http://www.pcchips.com.tw/product/M810DLUv52c.html which has ddr, but I don't think it is supported at the moment. Ollie, do you have any info about this board which is using 730D chipset.
I don't think there is officially a thing called 730D. Judge for the web page, I guess it is a 'remarked', 'cost down' version of SiS 740.
ollie lho wrote:
I don't think there is officially a thing called 730D. Judge for the web page, I guess it is a 'remarked', 'cost down' version of SiS 740.
As I asked you few days ago... is there around somebody willing to add support for sis740? I think my company would be interested and pay for it ;)
bye as
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Alessio Sangalli -
Andrew Ip -
Jonathan Morton -
ollie lho