You're on the right track with your installed hardware base. Because most
of us don't have a lot of money to spend on these things, we have to think
in terms of the maximum performance for the dollar.
The cluster that we use here at The NOSPIN Group is based on a Pentium Pro
200 and some Celeron 333 systems. The most effective way to link these
systems together would be with a 100Mb switch, but switches are fairly
expensive, even though the price has come down. Based on the systems that
you are using, though, you will probably be better served to build a 100Mb
network with a hub, and here's why:
The systems that use 100Mb switched networks (and faster) are usually
composed of fast systems, such as Alpha or Pentium II/III processors. These
are machines that are themselves very fast, so the latency imposed upon them
by a network with hubs would negate the performance benefit gained by the
fast processors. In your case, you have (relatively) slow processors that
should not suffer nearly as much from that latency. I think, though, that
you would notice a real performance drop with a 10Mb network.
There are a couple of network cards that I would recommend based upon my
experience with their performance...neither type has ever given any
problems.
The Intel EtherExpress Pro can be auto probed by Linux at setup. You don't
have to pick out the card...Linux can tell what it is. It's a very well
designed card that sees service in a lot of mass produced computers (and in
three of our Beowulf machines).
The Netgear FA310TX uses the DEC Tulip chipset which is very well supported
by Linux. This card is in two of our Beowulf machines.
As for a hub, we have several here and we've gotten the most reliability and
best performance from the Netgear FE108 desktop hub. These hubs are only
100Mb. They won't operate at 10Mb, so you can't intermix the two types of
Ethernet.
As far as price goes, the Netgear NICs are much less expensive than the
Intels. The hubs are about middle of the road in price, but their
reliability is extremely good. I have never had one of those hubs fail, but
I've been through several Linksys and Asante hubs.
Also, you might want to look at mosix as an alternative to pvm for your
clustering software. It appears to me that it creates more of a single
virtual machine than pvm. The URL is http://www.mosix.cs.huji.ac.il/.
Drew Dunn
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: [PCBUILD] Hardware recommencation for linux/windows network
>
>
> I'm a programmer, new to linux but I have a good background with
> Windows 95.
> I would like to experiment 3 thing with linux at home.
>
> 1. Use a linux as workstation
> 2. Use a linux as File and printer server for linux and Windows station
> 3. Experiment a linux cluster setup.
>
> My main goal is to discover the edge of linux potential in my hobby and
> eventualy found application of linux in bussiness.
>
> I have a Celeron 400
> 128 Meg
> 20 Gig HD
> ADI Microscan 6P
>
> As my main workstation
>
> I have also two 388, a 486 and a pentium 133 that I would like to use in
> cluster network and one of these as a file and printer server. I
> would like
> to get some other used computer to increase my cluster setup power.
>
> One application that would be interresting to experiment with is Povray
> (Cluster). I would eventualy connect to internet with cable modem.
>
> So now, I nead recommendation for hardware needed to implement
> this network,
> I mean Network card and hube. I'me very novice with network hardware. I'me
> not sure if I will go to 10Mh or 100Mh network speed and I need
> some ISA and
> some PCI device. Give me you advice.
>
> I don't wan to spend to much, so what should I buy?.
>
> Thank
>
> Martin Trevorn
> [log in to unmask]
>
> The PCBUILD web site always needs good submissions. If
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>
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