[Camerosaurus Rex]

After accumulating numerous mobos and and other parts of every kind, I've decided to interlink the motherboards together to perform a specific task that this sort of system is perfect for. I am worried, though, because I am unsure if Windows and Linux is the better alternative for the two. I'm really drawn towards the flexible and lightweight Linux yet I have never programmed in Unix (and I will need homebrew software) and I have a Norton Antivirus installers with many more installations and it's absolutely not compatible with Linux (obviously). In all honesty, the only time I've ever used Linux was YDL on my PS3, and I was never able to bring to an internet connection to get the most out of it. I'm also worried that Windows is too buggy and I have no idea if that's true as well for Linux. If I remember correctly, Windows is the only OS that uses socket connections and I'm very familiar with that kind of programming so I need to know if Linux has a simliar alternative as well. I apologize for the crappy post but I'm too busy with work to be researching this stuff. Any advice, of course, is helpful.

Thanks~

[modi123_1]

Are you asking about how to build a cluster?

http://www.mini-itx....ojects/cluster/

[Sethro117]

I forgot all about that modi! I've found another Great White Buffalo Project.

[modi123_1]

Hahaha... yeah. I was poking around with that idea recently. I was (wistfully) looking at mini atx boards for a mame cabinet and it struck me that why not use them for clustering? Or pump them full of video cards and run the hardware through there. Heh...

[Camerosaurus Rex]

modi123_1, on 06 June 2011 - 01:24 PM, said:

Are you asking about how to build a cluster?

Sure, I'm building a cluster, I just need to know if I should use Linux or Windows as the OS.

[GWatt]

Linux systems use a socket interface for network communication. I believe that sockets are defined in the POSIX specification. Windows Vista & 7 enterprise and ultimate editions are actually POSIX compliant operating systems, so I would expect most of your networking code to work with a few tweaks and a recompile.

[g-weebens]

It's better to use Linux+GNU than Windows $VERSION for the following reasons:

1) Linux uses the structured UNIX hierarchy
2) You only need to install the RedHat Cluster kernel module and kernel. Boot options are setup by GRUB.
3) You can create a chroot on each machine to run the task as a separate service.
4) You can use a minimalist window manager such as TWM, blackbox, icewm, et al to limit what the Desktop requires, thus providing more CPU power and RAM to the task at hand.
5) You can much more easily disable unnecessary services.
6) You can make the chroot environment inaccessible to anyone outside with a simple chmod command.
7) Each machine can run on 128M with both the chroot and a simple desktop. You can have 256M to 512M of RAM and have a responsive system along with the chroot.
8) You can add the services of machines with other architectures- PPC, PPC64, SPARC64, ARM, et al- to the cluster.
9) Security with OpenSSH on a non standard socket.
10) Firewall and security settings are more easily set.
11) Encryption for more filesystem types are available.

POSIX compliance is good; but, Windows installments have a higher requirement, are not customizable, don't allow the user more control, and are prone to executing an application without user permission.
I'm not sure if any of the BSD flavors- Open, Net, and Free- have a clustering option available. These systems are much more efficient than either the choice of Windows or Linux+GNU.

This post has been edited by g-weebens: 08 June 2011 - 11:41 AM

[Camerosaurus Rex]

Wow, thanks guys, I'm definitely going with Linux on this one. I guess it's never too early to learn something new.