Beowulf Cluster finished

The Beowulf cluster we finished and the cluster worked beautifully, however it did not work with the cbc program which may or may not have been the cause of the bottleneck.  Our client gave us the .mps files that cbc (COIN-OR Branch and Cut) would use, however using mpich2 with cbc caused some sort of bottleneck where mpich2 couldn't parrallelize cbc and therefore the head node within the cluster solved the MILP contained within the .mps file.  This is what suspect, however, we are unable to prove this since we can't find a way to do that.  Perhaps in the future, a better program tracker can be developed for use with Linux.

Lego Mindstorm NXT with AppInventor

I am currently working with a partner on a project involving the Legos Mindstorm NXT and the AppInventor software to develop an Android application for mobile device. The Legos Mindstorm NXT is supplied with the use of bluetooth. We currently have my Android phone, the HTC EVO 4G, connected via bluetooth to the NXT and controlling the sensors and motors that are connected to the NXT. Our project details building a robot with the NXT blocks controlling the motion and readings from the sensors. We currently have a sound sensor, 2 motors, ultra-sonic sensor, touch sensor, and a light sensor. We also have the use of the built in sensors on the phone which are an orientation sensor, location sensor, and a shake sensor. I will try and keep this blog up to date on any advancements or break-throughs we encounter. Please feel free to comment and ask questions.

Beginning Beowulf

I am part of a group of two, basically me and another guy. His name is Derick. Our project is to build a Beowulf Cluster for a Client that wants to make a program run faster than with a single computer. We are using Ubuntu 10.10. We are currently using three dual core machines with an option for more. Before we started this, the client ran a program called CBC on a quad core machine and it took about a day and one half. Our goal is to cut that time by a significant amount. We are currently employing the use of mpich2, nfs, rsh, ssh, cbc, g++, and gcc on the nodes of this Beowulf cluster. I will get the specs for the dual core machines and post them here if I can. Feel free to leave comments and questions.

Welcome

I would like to welcome you to this blog. I will be posting things related to Linux, Beowulf Clusters, and any other computer related information I deem important or useful.