Sponsored By
Efika 5200B Project
Low cost, low maintenance and scalable clustering using EFIKAin category Operating Systems
proposed by Astinus on 7th February 2006 (accepted on 10th February 2006)
Project Summary
Primary Project Goals:Expandable clustering solution based on Gentoo Linux, using the vastly efficient 'Single System Image' setup and netbooting the nodes - if you need more power, simply add another EFIKA.
Probably using a PPC desktop system as the 'master node' and NFS server to hold necessary images and perform the netboot from, although a distributed hard drive using OCFS2 might be neat.
Secondary Goals:
1) Testing and documentation of Gentoo/PPC packages.
2) Reliable 'always up' network host for critical services. Couple of small FAQs on how to reinforce your network redundancy using an EFIKA, rather than an expensive G5!
3) Documents/FAQs pertaining to usage as a thin client.
4) Documents/FAQs pertaining to usage as a media client.
5) Anything else that seems a cool idea :P
Project Blog Entries
Well Ive always been of the opinion that Genesi does a lot for the open source community, and that was reinforced today when my EFIKA project got approval! How very exciting!! Developer hardware should be arriving sometime and then I can get on with the business of generating results.
To be honest, I didnt really think my little idea would come up to the required standard to receive hardware - I mean honestly, why give a guy some hardware to tinker with a niche market like clustering? If youve got limited stocks of hardware to give out, most places will give it to a kernel monkey so the developments affect all/more of their users!
Nevertheless, Im approved and Genesi seem to be taking this developer program very seriously. Judging by the amount of projects being approved, a great deal of hardware and associated goodness is being shipped out very soon.
More from my little corner of the world in the near future!
EDIT: All apostrophes removed, the PPC Zone blog engine appears to insert escapes before them all. Minor bug? Thus, please don't send me e-mail claiming I'm a gramatically incorrect muppet!