Michael,
Before you go off investigating Beowolf clusters, I would urge you
to investigate whether the decompression is parallelizable or not. Most
compressed files are not (unless the original decompressed file is split
up and the individual partitions are compressed). So, you may get the
Beowolf running, but unless the MP3 decoding is parallelizable, it wont be
of any help to you.
Also - and I'm on thinner ground here - I believe that you need
fast networking for Beowolf clusters. Those old 386's all have ISA slots.
There are no 100Mbit ISA ethernet cards (they are all PCI). So your
networking will be limited in speed.
Regards,
Kenneth
There is no such thing as luck. 'Luck' is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
On Fri, 9 Apr 1999, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> I'm kinda thinking that I could use the ton of old 386s that I have maybe
> to take the load off of my 486 processor (either somewhat, or completely)
> so that I can play MP3 files at full sampling rate (currently, I have to
> play them at mono and 22050 Hz, or it basically overloads the
> processor)... I've got tons of 386DX/33 motherboards with memory on them,
> and I've even got a couple of other 486 motherboards I could try to throw
> into the mix. But, that's what I'd like to do with them (well, I've got
> nothing better to do with them, other than let them sit around).
>
> - Mike
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> --- Michael B. Trausch, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 100% MS Free! ---
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Tagline for Friday, April 09, 1999
>
> I am Clinton of Borg. Your income will be assimilated.
>
> LinuxTaRT version 2.27
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> On Fri, 9 Apr 1999, Ray Olszewski wrote:
>
> RO>Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 21:42:51 -0700
> RO>From: Ray Olszewski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> RO>To: Michael B. Trausch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> linux-newbie Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> RO>Subject: Re: Networked Processing Effort
> RO>
> RO>The simple answer to your first question is yes. Given your example, though,
> RO>the better answer is "sorta".
> RO>
> RO>You want to search the usual sources on "Linux Beowulf", efforts to cluster
> RO>via Ethernet some number of (usually) fast Pentiums to do high-performance
> RO>distributed computing. I doubt anyone has looked into doing this as a way to
> RO>recycle old 386s, though. One URL to check to get started (one that reports
> RO>on a mixed network of about 125 486s and Pentiums and has links to other Web
> RO>sites) is http://www.esd.ornl.gov/facilities/beowulf/
> RO>
> RO>At 10:52 PM 4/9/99 -0400, Michael B. Trausch wrote [abridged]:
> RO>
> RO>>Anyway. I've read in a few places that it is possible to network
> RO>>computers together, and have them kinda collectively process information.
> RO>>First question: Is this true?
> RO>>
> RO>>And, does that mean I could have several 386s working to decompress and
> RO>>play MP3s that I am playing, so that it would take the load from my single
> RO>>486 processor?
> RO>
> RO>------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
> RO>Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
> RO>762 Garland Drive
> RO>Palo Alto, CA 94303-3603
> RO>650.328.4219 voice [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> RO>----------------------------------------------------------------
> RO>
>
>
