09.07.07

Building the Home Supercomputer

Posted in Bakin's Bits at 3:36 pm by david

I was configuring a new computer to be used for testing concurrent software, and was using my standard self-guidelines: second-fastest processor available (a nod to economy), as much DRAM as I can jam on a motherboard, and the latest dual-graphics card technology. Whohoo! But then I found this site on building a very economical cluster system and I realized my guidelines were old-fashioned. I’m now in the mood to build my own micro-Beowulf, so I can experiment with parallel clusters as well as multicore concurrency.

Check it out: The system described produces 26Gflops at a cost (August 2007) of $1256! It consists of 4 microATX motherboards, each with a dual core CPU and 2GB RAM, 4 power supplies, 1 hard disk, and 1 8-port gigabit switch. The “structure” is scrap plexiglass and threaded rods – definitely minimal! – and the whole thing is 11″ x 12″ x 17″! Kudos to Professor Joel Adams and his student Tim Brom for designing, building, configuring, and benchmarking this small Beowulf.

Here’s another such system – LittleFe.  And here is a homebrew 10-node system from 2000, with the same idea w.r.t. minimal packaging.

(My main conclusion about my self-guidelines: I don’t need even the second-fastest processor anymore. Nearly any current processor is fast enough for development purposes, compiler and system bloat notwithstanding. This system uses cheap multicore processors, a reasonable amount of memory for each node, and doesn’t need anything more than the built-in motherboard graphics. I would still like a system with a hot new graphics card however, so I can experiment with GPGPU.)

Update Sept 18 2007: Lot’s of people are doing work in this area—which will make it easy to get started!  Here are some more links:

ParallelKnoppix - A LiveCD that let’s you boot up an MPI cluster in 5 minutes!

And on the ParallelKnoppix site, some user’s have sent in pictures of their clusters—lot’s of different (and primitive, yet working) building techniques here!

And this page from Dec 2005 describes how some guy built a “mobile wireless linux cluster” (2 nodes) in order to have access to “big computer resources” while exploring a cave, mountain climbing, a weekend trip to the mountains, or who knows what else.

08.21.07

Welcome to Bakin’s Bits

Posted in Bakin's Bits at 3:22 pm by david

I—David Bakin—am an experienced software developer with over 25 years experience developing system and application software.

My aim with Bakin’s Bits is to produce programming tools to help software developers write better programs, and enjoy writing them more. The initial tools I am working on will help diagnose and debug concurrency issues in multithreaded programs—much much better than current debugging tools. I’m launching Bakin’s Bits with the help of an angel investor (who is also providing a lot of non-financial support and encouragement).

I will provide programming services on a consulting basis until my products get off the ground.

And I will provide short articles on debugging concurrent programs, developing concurrent programs, and other programming topics that interest me, on this site.

My main interests are:

  • issues in concurrency, especially correctness, debugging, and appropriate design
  • functional programming—I know it is fun, I know it is powerful, but can I construct a business case that will convince a development manager to let me put it into a product?
  • GPGPU programming and other forms of stream programming, including
    • massively scalable systems that fit in Google’s map-reduce paradigm or another similar functional pipeline
  • fun in programming—not just fun as in functional, but also fun problems, fun algorithms, and having a fun time while keeping my brain active.

 Thanks for checking in!  — Dave