Re: [cobalt-users] seti@home on qube

[Kris Dahl <krislists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

on 6/4/00 9:06 AM, THEJRC at thejrc@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> odd question here
> 
> but I'm working on a qube cluster, and I'm looking to test it out with
> Berkeley's Search for extraterrestrial intelligence client, has anyone
> successfully set this up on a Qube/raq2??
> 
> for that matter has anyone successfully clustered these machines??
> would be interested in any inpho's

Well, a Qube puts out something like 200 BogoMips.  My PIII 500 puts out 500
or so.

A Barebones PIII 700 is running like $1000 from Dell right now.  A qube will
set you back a $1000 or so as well.

My question is why would you purchase a machine that honestly isn't really
that great of a number cruncher and create a cluster out of them.  You can
build a Celleron system that will vastly outperform a Qube for less than
$500.  It wouldn't make sense.

In any case, SETI@Home isn't really a great clusterable application from
what I understand.  They don't even really optimize for architectures,
especially the MIPS.  And besides, its designed from the get go to be a
distributed client--that's the whole point--and you're trying to make it run
on a cluster?  That is why they built the client like they did--so that
multiple machines can act like a cluster.  If you are looking for an
application to just crunch some numbers, try using POV ray or something.

-k