One of the nice things about Linux is that if a certain feature you need isn't available, you can write or create your own. The obvious drawback, of course, is you need to be a programmer with some mad skillz in order to do that. Fortunately, there are a few of them out there, and here are some of the kernel patches I sometimes use and where to get them. I'm thinking of starting a kernel patch repository here because frankly there isn't one anywhere else!
Suspend2
Those of us with laptops know how nice suspending to disk can be. I use it every day. I standby my laptop before I leave the office, and when I plug it in back at home, I'm right back where I was half an hour before. This comes in real handy when you're reading something online and want to finish when you get home. Anyway, this is the patch that emulates Windows hibernation feature. Not a small or easy change to implement, but worth it in the end.
OpenMosix & OpenSSI
These allow you to turn all of the computers in your location into one big supercomputer. Sort of...Beowulf-style clustering is the most well known Linux parallel-processing hack. The problem with Beowulf is you have to write your software to directly support parallel processing. Your software does all the work, Beowulf just lets it do it. OpenMosix & OpenSSI do this at the kernel level, meaning you kernel moves your threads between machines. You don't get the level of performance you do with Beowulf, but for things like render farms, this comes quite in handy. Unfortunately, neither supports the 2.6 kernel yet, but OpenMosix is pretty close.
User Mode Linux
Esentially, this is a console-mode VMWare. It allows you to compile a special kernel that can be run ("booted") just like a regular executable. Good for testing software before you put it into production.
USB/IP Project
Easily one of my favorites. And the fact that it works on recent kernels so I can use it doesn't hurt much, either. :) Basically, this is just a driver that emulates a USB hub. The hub, however, transmits/receives all traffic to/from the USB device connected to over an IP-based network. In other words, connect a USB device to your machine, and any other machine with this driver can use it as if it were a local device. Imagine a USB-enclosed hard drive that everyone can mount and backup their stuff to. Or, a desk in your house with a server that lives underneath. You plug your scanner into it, and to use it you just take your wireless laptop over and start working. No plugging things in just to work. Sweet!
My technocrati feeds redirected to your posting about openMosix and openSSI.
ReplyDeleteI think however I have to fix some "bugs" in your posting. First of al openMosix does migrates around processes , but has difficulties with stuff such as pthreads and java. Secondly however you claim that openMosix doesn't give you the performance you get with a beowulf wich also doesn't sound correct. The openMosix community posted papers years ago on how openMosix often is faster than Beowulfs but also how it integrates with beowulfs style applications (mpi/pvm) in such a way that it increases the beowulf performance.