Distributed Processing

[asimo]

hey

ive got 3 computers in my house - an AMD 2000+, P4 2.8 and an old celery 1ghz. they are all networked

I got 1 question.. Can i get a program that enables me to share the processor load over the network.

i have read lots about distributed networking but havent seen many people running it successfully. Also i can seem to find any software that will allow me to do it.

even $10,000 software is good cause then i can read more on the sucject

thanks for ur replys

[MxxCon]

absolutly nothing that you do every day would benefit from "distributed computing"(if it was otherwise you'd know about it :D)

simple reason is the time it takes to transmit a task over the network, compute it on remote system and transmit results back is much slower than just doing it localy.

what you read about is probably stuff like SETI@HOME or FOLDING@HOME or GENOME@HOME or UNITED DEVICES.

such tasks benefit from distributed computing is becuase amount of data that needs to be processed is absolutly gigantic.

[asimo]

im on a gigabit network so network traffic is not a bother. im really wanting to know about distributed processing so that i can compress my videos in the least time possible

[ootput]

absolutly nothing that you do every day would benefit from "distributed computing"(if it was otherwise you'd know about it :D)

Linux clusters took care of "Titanic" Rendering. As much I thought the movie blew chunks, it was impressive, nevertheless.

Personally, I use Distributed compiling with distcc. My slackware boxes co-exist perfectly, that it's actually kind of scary. :ninja:

Here's a nice quote:

You may have several computers which could potentially be used as a distcc compiler farm, but perhaps each computer runs a different operating system, or even a different Linux distribution. A version of Knoppix (a distribution of Linux which runs entirely from a bootable CD) customised to self-configure as a distcc compiler is now available from http://opendoorsoftware.com. Using this distribution you can deploy a compiler farm very quickly by simply booting each of your computers with the distccKNOPPIX CD, and when you?re finished, rebooting into the operating system installed on the computer. No need to make any changes to your computer.

Check out the rest of the page, and you'll realise that it's not too difficult to set up. Of course, if you have other priorities for a cluster, it wouldn't be a great idea.

Distcc has saved me so much time. Development + Deployment speeds are crucial in my line of work.

[asimo]

thanks for the info on distcc it was a great read. but im looking for more info on distributing the processing over 3 windows boxes.

just wondering also how sentio's setup is running currently. what specs do you have on your system? do you run your systems dedicated to linux?

is the quote that you put saying that i could boot using the distccKNOPPIX CD and then run windows and share the processing over a network? wouldnt this conflict with windows networking??

thanks for your reply and sorry for all the questions

[Billprozac]

There are some hack methods to use multipe pc for some specific tasks. FOr example, you can setup a network render using many 3d rendering programs, but you have to have the software installed on all of them, and the software just breaks up the job, distributes the sub jobs in batch mode, they run, return the results, then join the video files. It is not really great unless you have an Uberlong movie and an Uberamount of computers that are all Uberfast.