I was contemplating using an OpenMosix cluster to speed things up when backing up a dvd. I use Shrink on Windoze with an old pc right now (550 mhz CPU) that takes 6-8 hours for a smooth backup. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions for using parallel OS's for backup/ripping?
It's a pain.. I use 8 old p266's,(sometimes when I can be bothered) some days are slower than others. Some days it won't even boot without messing with it..the hardware failures are bad news. Ripping dvd's with linux isn't much fun, and when you add that to the hassle of clusters and streaming it becomes a nightmare. I wish I could afford a nice fast PC to just rip with xp like everybody else does. Read lots on setting up a ..well with machines of that kind of performance you will need 4 or 5 to see any gains over a modern single processor..4 -6 node cluster. Then you will need to find mulit-thread parallel applications, or write your own. Just an example of what you are getting into.. http://www.exit1.org/archive/dvdrip-users/2004-01/threads.html I'd love to help but every heap is different... I did a little rooting around and it seems that dvdrip has cluster capabilities in the newest version. I'm having too many other troubles right now to worry about dvd ripping but check it out and post what you find..
Wow, that does seem to be quite a lot just for a minimal gain. I am really trying to find a way to justify all of the hundreds of hours I'm sure to spend setting up a cluster and thought faster ripping would bolster my argument. I'm going to go for it anyway very shortly after I clear my calender of a big obligation. I will be sure to post both my problems and the solutions I find. Thanks for the heads up and the link, they were very helpful. Your experiences are about what I expected. I'll be posting again about this in 2-3 months when I'm knee deep in.
Great news.. Please do try it. If nothing else you will gain a heap of knowhow of the kind only terminal tinkerers ever get. The best way I found was to start small.. just 3 machines to get a feel for how things work together and then expand with as much old hardware as you can find. It doesn't really need to be matching on a performance level, but you can get lucky and find say a school or something scrapping 10 - 50 obsolete machines for peanuts. People give me antiques which I overclock as much as possible and run into the ground. I think the best thing to do is plenty of reading.. http://www.beowulf.org/ with a notebook, form a plan of what you intend and slowly collect all the "junk" hardware you will need.. There is another linux for clusters.. clusterix http://clusterix.livecd.net/ which may be just what you are looking for. It seems a lot easier than the multi-threaded home made suse6 derivative I run on mine. (when it works at all) Like you I'm tied up with lots of other stuff at the moment, so no real time to get involved with a rebuild. Anyway.. It's good to see you still have the determination to get it done after that monster link I gave you in my last post.. ;-)
