routine task-sharing between machines?

[Jarhead]

Hey all, probably a misguided question, but I'm curious if this would work... I may have come across a cheap, relatively nice system in addition to the one I am currently running. Both would be SMPs and I have been drooling over the possibility of combining them into one single system. Granted, I could simply use one for distcc to speed up compiling, but would I be able to have them share other tasks, such has, say, opening a program? From what I've read on the internet, this would be something like a server cluster. Is something like this possible?
_________________
Hats off to everyone in leadership, developmental, or administrative capacities for Gentoo Linux. Your hard work is very much appreciated.

[zoran]

You could give OpenMosix a try. It is probably the cluster solution that is the easiest to setup. Whether it helps you depends on the tasks you throw at it. For further information read the OpenMosix FAQ.

HTH

[Jarhead]

Oooo, very nice. The way I understood openmosix is that it just spreads out tasks rather than having all the processors work on everything. I would probably want to use distcc to make sure that both machines compile though, right?
_________________
Hats off to everyone in leadership, developmental, or administrative capacities for Gentoo Linux. Your hard work is very much appreciated.

[zoran]

Hmmm I don't really know what to tell you. OpenMosix migrates processes to other nodes in the cluster to even the load. "All the processors work on everything" as you stated is probably something else. Maybe I didn't understand you correctly? Or you could be more specific on what you try to accomplish? If you try to build a high performace cluster for extensive number crunching OpenMosix is probably not the right direction. In that case you can find suggestions here.

distcc is a great tool for one job. Its easy to setup and has a very low overhead. If you have a working OpenMosix cluster you don't really need distcc. If your MAKEOPTS are high enough the compile processes will migrate to the other nodes in your cluster. But if your only concern is speeding up your compile times distcc is the way to go.

[Jarhead]

hmmm, yes, I guess I wasn't very clear before. Basically, my ideal setup would be where the second SMP would function as a simple extension of the existing system, so for all intents and purposes, all 4 of the processors, and all of the other system resources, would work toward whatever was being accomplished on the user end. Basically tacking another computer onto the existing one and have them function as a single unit. It would be a High Performance cluster then?
_________________
Hats off to everyone in leadership, developmental, or administrative capacities for Gentoo Linux. Your hard work is very much appreciated.

[zoran]

[Jarhead]

Ok, thanks much!
_________________
Hats off to everyone in leadership, developmental, or administrative capacities for Gentoo Linux. Your hard work is very much appreciated.