> q1) How about the BeOS? ... any reports on attempts or successes in > using BeOS on clusters and multiprocessor systems? > > Considering that the latest iterations of BeOS seems to have been > specifically targeted at multiprocessor, multitasking projects, this > might seem to be a natural ... and not just a toy of garage shops
yeah, but why do you think the OS matters much? in a cluster, you just want it to get out of the way and let the program run. does BeOS do something dramatically better? > q2) Anyone examining the IBM Cell processor? ... Is this processor > worthy of consideration for clusters and multiprocessor systems? > > Same, same for the IBM Cell processor = targeted at the future > multiprocessor markets and not just game systems (like Sony > Playstation 3). Cell is not impressive: it's a PPC chip with some attached processors for doing FP-intensive, low-data crunching (like game rendering.) I tried hard to find any sign of interesting new computing paradigms, and completely failed. it's pretty straightforward: you run a normal OS on the (very normal) PPC core, and do DMA-like transfers to get stuff in and out of the attached processors. no real ISA cleverness, no Big Vision (like, say the i432, hah!) yes, if you put a bunch of FPUs on a chip you get lots of flops. wow. just as with GPUs, the reported flop rates are far more impressive if you're using single-precision. I don't know of many non-video codes that use 32b floats... _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, [email protected] To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
