ParallelKnoppix

Last week, ParallelKnoppix team released a new version of their live system: "Sync to KNOPPIX 5.0.1 CD (en); Ogg Theora screencast of setup captured with Istanbul (provided); PVM-POVRay HOWTO by Janos Tolgyesi and Mahsa Nemati; GROMACS is in /usr/local: user reports are welcome; various minor improvements and bugfixes.". You can read the full release announcement here.

What is ParallelKnoppix?

ParallelKnoppix is the fastest and easiest way there is to create a HPC cluster. It is designed to be easy to use, but it is also suitable for serious work. In fact, with ParallelKnoppix you may get more serious work done than you would using alternatives, simply because you'll have more time free to use your cluster, rather than install/administrate it.

ParallelKnoppix is a remaster of the Knoppix Live CD linux distribution that allows setting up a cluster of machines for parallel processing using MPI. The openMPI, LAM-MPI and MPICH implementations are installed and ready to use. PVM is also included. You can convert a room full of machines running Windows into a Linux cluster, and when you shut down, your Windows machines are in their original state. The computers in the cluster can be homogeneous or heterogeneous.

It takes about 5 minutes to start the cluster, if the machines have PXE network cards. ParallelKnoppix supports clusters from 2 to 200 machines. A cluster created with ParallelKnoppix is temporary and if you want to use it another time you must recreate it. The cluster created with ParallelKnoppix is also single-user; for a multi-user and permanent cluster, you should look at other solutions, including ROCKS and Warewulf. ParallelKnoppix can serve as a gentle, smooth learning curve way to get into HPC clustering.

The latest version of ParallelKnoppix benefits from kernel 2.6.17 and X.Org 7.0.

Here are some screenshots we have made for ParallelKnoppix:










Download ParallelKnoppix now from Softpedia.