Exotic computers, unusual configuration or just loved machines
3 Sep 2007 21:44:28 UTC
Topic 193096
(moderation:
Do you have exotic machine? Modern or vintage. Or just machine you like very much for some reason. If does it still serve, especially einstein@home describe it. Anyone have Linux on Alpha or R10000?
I had few machines like that. Only one which is in use is Compaq ProLiant DL760. Produced in 2001 I bought very cheap on ebay. It has eight Pentium III Xeons with 2MB cache and 12GB RAM. That old machine can still compete with modern ones, especially doing floating-point calculations. Computer weight 70kg and takes about 700W when all processors are in full load.
Computer info page on einstein.phys.uwm.edu
Inserting 7th processor
All 8 Xeons on two FSB and memory card
Boot process
Unix 'top' command. Click image to enlarge.
Exotic computers, unusual configuration or just loved machines
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Your benchmarks are comparable to those of my 400 MHz PII (only a little better). The crunching time of a WU of yours is one third of mine, but you are crunching 12 WUs while I crunch one, so your RAC 1s 1000 while mine is 50. Your power consumption is seven times mine, which means that your power/credit ratio is about three times lower. Your machine reminds me of a MIPS R6000 with TTL logic, no microprocessor, which I used from 1991 to 1995 with UNIX System V. Now I am using SuSE 10.1. Cheers.
Tullio
Interesting thread :-) looks
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Interesting thread :-) looks like fun reading. Unfortunately I don't have anything to add myself- never got my hands on anything more exotic than the average customer PC.
Patryk: What OS is that you're using? The command shell and a bit of KDE don't really tell me much and I'm curious...
RE: Your benchmarks are
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Come on Tullio. I haven't write anything about benchmarks. I didn't want to say my machine is better than yours. Every machine, especially unusual or discontinued (like those with Alpha processor) has some strong points worth to mention. I just believe some of us has beautiful machines, often forgotten. Please post only if you are in some way enthusiastic about that kind of computer. Best part of your post was that about R6000 and UNIX System V.
My machine is worth to mention because it has really unusual configuration. It has four-chip 8-Xeon Corollary Profusion chipset, and some chips designed by Digital Equipment Corp. (DECchip 21154). Also has PCI-to-i960 procesor bridge (Intel's not well known very advanced 80960RP processor). Also memory is configured in RAID5. All memory modules are hot-swap. You can pull module out during normal computer operation. And more. It is most advanced Intel server of year 2001. However that is not most important thing in this thread.
If I want to have really fast and efficient machine I would build 4-processor 4-core future Opteron Barcelona.
To Annika:
I use Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 on all of my machines (since 1997)
RE: Come on Tullio. I
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I think I made abundantly clear that your machine is better than mine. I am sorry you did not understand this. But I would rather go for a RISC chip like SUN's T2. You can do a lot of optimization in your code on a RISC, this I understood from my MIPS experience.
Tullio
Thx Patryk. Nothing like
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Thx Patryk. Nothing like Debian on a server imho ;-) while I prefer Kubuntu for my home boxes (mainly because of the bigger comfort and more recent software packages) on a server where security and stability are most important I would always go for Debian.
RE: Come on Tullio. I
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Big misunderstanding, Tullio was referring to the benchmark figures that are visible in you Computer info page , I guess, just to compare it to his own vintage PC. We had a "Vintage computers on E@H" thread a couple of weeks before, you will notice that Tullio is very enthusiastic about vintage PCs.
BTW: Hey Gary, where are you? This is something for you as well.
Nice box, and it's never cold in winter in this room, I guess :-).
Once the RAC has stabilized for this "dinosaur", it should get >> 800 credits per day, which would place it firmly among the TOP 500 of all PCs on
Einstein@Home! Go, Pentium III, Go!!!! Well, provided you let it run 24/7.
EDIT: miscalculated RAC first...
CU
H-BE
RE: RE: Come on Tullio.
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Correct. Evidently the benchmarks refer to a single CPU and not to the whole system, Notice how Linux manages processes in the picture referring to the "top" command.
afaik benchmarks always refer
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afaik benchmarks always refer to a single CPU, so, to get the overall figure, you have to multiply it with the number of cores (than take a few percent off for scheduling? not sure). It's like that with my Core Duo and I think it's normal.
Yes. I am really sorry
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Yes. I am really sorry Tullio. I misunderstood you. That's because I'm not yet comfortable with English language. I've seen your profile. Now I know you know a lot of computing history by your personal experience. I admire it. Also I agree about RISC processors. RISC and UNIX are my favourite combination.
In room with my box is warm. That's true. I hope electricity bills won't be too high.
I donate whole CPU idle time to E@H. Unfortunately after 1-2 days of work all 8 einstein processes becomes zombie. After that I need to restart Boinc manually. I will investigate it later.
RE: Thx Patryk. Nothing
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Many people say that. However I never had problems with Debian on desktops. Maybe Kubuntu is more user friendly. But you can set debian version to testing and you have access to recent packages. I've been using Slackware and SuSE. SuSE seems to be easy and comfortable. I suppose all non-tech distribution are like that.