Which OS for a farm

[Zeus]

Hi all

I'm about to setup my first 100% folding rig (folding only) 1800AMD AbitsKR7A, mem etc and an old HD.

Now I have XP but wish too keep it legal only three legal versions of XP, but I do have 2000, ME and 98.

I intend to set the machine up in my garage (once its up and running)  via a network link but I wish to moniter the system without spending cash on software. so to check on the system etc what software would you guys advise and which OS, does PC Anywhere do the trick?

Thanks for any input

[Zeus]

Which OS for a farm

[shinysteve]

Hey Zeuss.

Of course, if you need free software, look not further than Linux as it's about the only free OS there is.
XP makes for a very simple machine easily controlable remotely via the impressively efficient remote desktop protocol but of course its a waste of money if all you're doing is folding. The minimum OS you need for folding probably fits on a floppy disk so why pay for the rest of it?

Of course, Linux is not as easy as XP. Its getting better all the time but it's still a pain in the arse sometimes. Having said that, there are a ton of people that can help you.

Test out linux by using the 'overfoldix' project bootable Linux CD (just burn and go!) or the superb full-size Knoppix boot from CD linux.

Will you have a disk on board or will you go diskless?

Regards

Steve.

[Zeus]

Thxs Steve

I was planning to put in an old harddrive and then to also use it (once the system was stable) to put all my folding directories on it to save on the hard drive problems. Will sharing the same HD effect WU production over my home network

That ''overfoldix' project bootable Linux CD sounds good are you using it?  

[shinysteve]

Hi Zeuss.

I use the overfoldix CD yes. But I modified it so that it would save to a network drive that I have. I have 8 machines folding without disks and saving results to one NFS network drive (NFS protocol is not supported by many Microsoft OS's)
The (unmodified) overfoldix CD method has one drawback and that is that all results are stored in memory. If you switch off the PC before a WU is finished - all the work is lost!!

There should be no effect on folding speed/power by using this method.

If you want to share one drive to be used by other folding machines then you need to consider your client machines needs.
Currently Windows home versions have no support for NFS (network file system) which is commonly used by unix/linux. However, many Linux versions have 'Samba' which allows you to use the Microsoft sharing method (known as CIFS or SMB.) This is the method I used on my 'Windows folding farm' project - http://www.hiblue.com/folding


Two other methods to consider are
- 'net-booting' which requires no disk or cd - just an ethernet card capable of booting a net image from a server.
- USB pen drive. There should be no problem using a 32 or 64Mb USB pen drive to boot and fold without using disk or CD drive. I have not done this as when I looked at the options last year, usb pen drives were expensive. Now you can get a 32Mb drive for about $15. You will have to ensure that your motherboard can boot from USB drives tho. If this works it could be a very easy way to achieve cheap folding clients without hard drives or CDROms.

S.