farm

[two_dope2000]

how exactly does a farm work? i have an idea i just wanna hear it from the pros ;)

[su root]

Well, generally you plant the seeds, and then harvest when ripe :D

A folding farm? a Seti farm? a cluster farm? a beowolf cluster?

for Folding and Seti, all the farm is, is a network of computers, all folding or crunching seti. all of them have internet access via a proxy, so they can upload their finished work, and request new work. For folding & seti farms, you don't need a whole lot of internal bandwidth, as only work will be sent & recieved, very little other communication is nessicary. The boxes usually don't talk to eachother, they just work by themselves.

As for the clustering or beowolf clustering, they "act as one computer", and all processing is delegated to the other nodes, so you need alot of internal bandwidth, and lots of setup so they chat properly.

[two_dope2000]

what kind of software and os does a beowolf cluster require?

[su root]

beowulf clusters are usually run using Linux or Unix, and you need special software.

http://www.beowulf.org/

Both the server and the clients need configuration. Generally, you can run the clients without a hard drive (via network or floppy boot)