[ExI] homebrew cold freon bath super computer

[Tomasz Rola]

And some afterthoughts, batch no. ...

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012, Tomasz Rola wrote:

> Now, after you perform manual labour and make all the easy stuff, there 
> are issues related to software and maintainance. The more you know from 
> this list, the better:
> 

The list wasn't meant to scare you off (hint: say you wasn't scared). 
Rather, serve as a sketchy plan. Also, no need to become an expert in any 
of this. It is more about knowing your way around, so you know there is 
some docs to peek into or can ask better questions on the net.

BTW, I think many if no all of the things you might learn, you will 
quickly find yourself using them one way or another on a daily basis.

For example, it was my long habit to run Python interpreter soon after 
logging in and use it for all kinds of quick calculations. Until one day I 
started using Common Lisp interpreter for this - but that's another story. 
Python is - I guess - one of the easiest to learn of contemporary 
mainstream languages. You can have a glimpse of it from some youtube 
videos, like those:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMi-uN-6O1Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6pdG1oWFX4

> For starting with Linux, you can try VirtualBox. I assume you are Windows 
> user, right? VirtualBox will give you a virtual computer, with which you 
> can do every bad thing you ever dreamt of. After irreversible error, you 
> simply scratch it and start over. I would choose Debian Linux for 
> practical reasons. Usually I recommend Ubuntu but it is actually aimed 
> towards Windows refugees and packed with all kinds of graphical wizards. 
> In cluster situation, you should count only on console (a vt100 terminal, 
> if you like).

I forgot to mention, last time I used VBox (some, say, two years ago) it 
was possible to make more than one such virtual PCs, connected via virtual 
network, running different OSes etc. So, once you get comfortable with one 
Linux, you might want to make a virtual Beowulf cluster first, to feel the 
things.

Also, you can make use of cloud services with knowledge of VBox. I think 
Amazon Cloud accepts images made with it, so you can have a cluster in 
this way, too.

So all in all, this might be lots of fun.

Ok, enough of this.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **