Dotsch/UX - A USB/Diskless/Harddisk BOINC Linux Distribution

[Dotsch]

Today I have released Dotsch/UX 1.0. - Dotsch/UX is a Linux distribution for BOINC which easily installs and boot from a USB stick, hard disk and from diskless clients and also has some interfaces to setup the diskless server and the clients automatically.

For more informations have a look at http://www.dotsch.de/Dotsch_UX

[yoyo]

Today I have released Dotsch/UX 1.0. - Dotsch/UX is a Linux distribution for BOINC which easily installs and boot from a USB stick, hard disk and from diskless clients and also has some interfaces to setup the diskless server and the clients automatically.

For more informations have a look at http://www.dotsch.de/Dotsch_UX

Cool!!!!

[nico]

Great, I always wanted to create something similar but never found the time....
I think you can save some space for the discless clients by "creative" soft-linking....

[Dotsch]

I think you can save some space for the discless clients by "creative" soft-linking....

In the devolpent process I have also delevoped a version with hardlinks, and though a long time about pros and cons. - Primarly it works with hard links, but if you would like to upgrade or patch the clients you will eventualy ran into some problems with the different apt database. Simliar if you would customise some of the diskless clients with some special software.
The hard linked client version required about 500 MB for each client on the server...

But, eventualy I can add this as second alternative for the diskless installation.

[Dotsch]

Cool!!!!

Thank you !

[nico]

Primarly it works with hard links, but if you would like to upgrade or patch the clients you will eventualy ran into some problems with the different apt database. Simliar if you would customise some of the diskless clients with some special software.

I understand... but there is also a solution for that: an overlay file system like aufs.
Aufs is used by knoppix to simulate a writeable filesystem on the dvd/cdrom (the actual changes are written on a ramdisk). One can use this also to combine two filesystems - so for DotschUX you can have one standard file system and overlay this one with a second (empty) one for the clients. If a client changes something, this changes will be written to the second filesystem only for the client itself. I didn't test it myself with nfs and stuff but i think it is worth a try...

[Dotsch]

Primarly it works with hard links, but if you would like to upgrade or patch the clients you will eventualy ran into some problems with the different apt database. Simliar if you would customise some of the diskless clients with some special software.

I understand... but there is also a solution for that: an overlay file system like aufs.
Aufs is used by knoppix to simulate a writeable filesystem on the dvd/cdrom (the actual changes are written on a ramdisk). One can use this also to combine two filesystems - so for DotschUX you can have one standard file system and overlay this one with a second (empty) one for the clients. If a client changes something, this changes will be written to the second filesystem only for the client itself. I didn't test it myself with nfs and stuff but i think it is worth a try...

It's a good idea. But in the moment there are a lot of other things on the high prio list. Eventualy I can test, if this would work. But, you have still the same issues with upgrading and patching the clients like with the hard links.
I think also, that in the time, where 250 GB HDDs are very cheep, the pro and cons for a more compfortable installation of the diskless clients would be prefered.

[nico]

I think also, that in the time, where 250 GB HDDs are very cheep, the pro and cons for a more compfortable installation of the diskless clients would be prefered.

No!No!No! I want to boot a 500 diskless nodes cluster from just one USB Stick!

[Dotsch]

I think also, that in the time, where 250 GB HDDs are very cheep, the pro and cons for a more compfortable installation of the diskless clients would be prefered.

No!No!No! I want to boot a 500 diskless nodes cluster from just one USB Stick!

You're joking ?
I did not recomemend this. The perfomance IO perfomance from the USB stick is to bad to do this.

[Dotsch]

Today I have released Dotsch/UX 1.1. Mayor changes are the availability of a 32 bit (i386) and 64 bit (x64) distribution, mixed i386 and x64 diskless client on one single diskless server, build in BOINC client 6.4.5 and bug fixes? for the USB, hard disk, diskless server and diskless client Installation tools.

The distribution is available at http://www.dotsch.de/Dotsch_UX

[yoyo]

Hi Dotsch,
I will use it to use my win xp laptop as Linux 64 bit system for Boinc. Does Dotsch/UX supports wlan? I will install it on USB and it should detect my WLAN and ask for the network key.
yoyo

[Dotsch]

Hi Dotsch,
I will use it to use my win xp laptop as Linux 64 bit system for Boinc. Does Dotsch/UX supports wlan? I will install it on USB and it should detect my WLAN and ask for the network key.
yoyo

Yes. In the forums other peoples has reported, that they got WLAN working successfull with different WLAN adapters. - As it's based on Ubunutu, the Ubuntu drivers are available...
Btw. please have a check on my homepage, there was a bug in the IP address assginment with DHCP. A workaround is available.