[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Re: [school-discuss] School's computer lab in local news



On Saturday 08 October 2005 04:34 pm, Damiano Verzulli wrote:
> Interesting. As far as I understood, apart from the (...unfortunatly not
> so) usual things about Linux in a school computer labs, it seems you're
> also using some forms of "clustering", at least to do some kind of
> parallel-compile.
>
> I wonder if you're using some built-in tools from Gentoo [*] or if
> you've built, on top of it, something like a Beowulf cluster and the
> like... Any (technical) details, about this (...and/or also the rest),
> could be appreciated (at least by me).
>

See my answer to Bill, it covers the basics of how we use distcc - not as 
fancy as Beowulf, but quite simple to use and designed specifically for 
"clustering" compilation to multiple computers.

> > We've been using Linux for a few years now, but we recently switched
> > to Gentoo,
>
> Maybe this is a typo. As Gentoo is a Linux distribution, you were
> probably referring to a change in the distribution, right? From which
> distribution you moved away? And why? [**]
>

We originally had Mandrake. I like Mandrake, but I had problems installing 
software not included on the CD (even if it was an upgrade). Sometimes RPMs 
work great, but many times it seems like a wild goose-chase following 
dependencies. Gentoo's portage system, though not perfect, does make my job 
as a system administrator much easier - especially when adding or updating 
our software. I also like the speed and stability I get by compiling for our 
specific hardware.

> Thanks in advance,
> Damiano
>

No problem :-)

> [*] I'm not a Gentoo user
> [**] Obviously I don't want to start a distribution-flame. I'm only
> interested in the real reason that let you move to Gentoo.