Clic (Linux Clustering)

[jsm008us]

Has anyone heard of Clic? It is Mandrake Linux 9.0 with Clustering with it. All you need is more than one computer with Clic installed on a Hub, Switch, whatever networked together and it will be the added speed of both computers togheter. I don't know much about it, but it's said it really works (fast). This means more WUs done in a faster time and it can be great for an older computer to be put back to work, adding speed to a fast processor. BTW, Clic is 100% Free!

[MLMIB]

would be nice if we did the yatta ^_^

[jsm008us]

Sorry, but I don't understand: what is the yatta?

[litghost]

f@h is not multi-thread, so really it doesnt make a differnce wether the units are being folded on a cluster or not.

[Fast420A]

A "yatta" is a term that this site has given to Folding Monsters as seen here. (http://ws9.jobnegotiator.com/html/flinks.html)

I personally like the term farm or stack rather than yatta which is what one of the diskless folding programs is called, yattalinux.

If I am understanding the post correctly you are saying that my 1 Gig Athlon and 800 Mhz Slot A Athlon would be considered a single 1.8 Ghz CPU while running Clic and would use the processing power of both CPU's to fold 1 client with 1 WU?


Found this, reading it now.

http://clic.mandrakesoft.com/index-en.html

[Arkaine23]

The point of distributed clients is that one big job has been spilt into many small ones, and the processed work is reconstructed into a whole later. This means the clients are single threaded, and meant to work one client or more per CPU, not one client across several CPU's (multi-threading). Also when clustering to run multi-threaded apps (video encoding is a common example), internal network bandwidth is a limiting factor as to how well and how fast the independent nodes of a cluster can function as a team. So spring for gigabit ethernet devices and NICs if you can.

[Fast420A]

So, being the linux expert you are Arkaine, Will this work the way it is designed to? Could a 5 layer farm @ 2Gig each fold one protein at a 10 Gig processor speed?

[Arkaine23]

No. Folding is single-threaded so you can't get it to work one client on several CPU's at once. But you can build a cluster, and run a single folding client on each CPU. Not much point to it unless you use the cluster for other (multi-threaded) things as well.

[jsm008us]

I don't know much about Clic (heard it from a friend, I'll have to ask him). If anyone is sure of how it works exactly and if DC would go faster or not, please post here. How do the farms/stacks/yattas work then? I was thinking of making one (If its not too expensive)

[Fast420A]

Basically you make a system that is the most basic (cheapest) to run just an operating system and fold, thats all.

You set up a "layer" which consists of a Mobo (usually with onboard video), Processor, RAM, and then a Power Supply to run 1 or 2 layers depending on the power draw of each layer.

From there you have to pick how you are going to set it up, a Hard Drive for each layer (raises cost), a CD Rom for each layer running overclockix, A layer with a hard drive as the server and each layer Network Boots the OS from the server. There's even some that have an entire OS and Folding program on a USB Drive.

Here's a few farms.
http://ws9.jobnegotiator.com/html/flinks.html