I plan on setting up a Linux machine to sit in a corner and number-crunch away
on high-res high-quality render shots.

Me being a dumb Windows user (well, not particularly dumb, but... well, used to
"click, point and shoot" style of operation), I want this dumb box to do
something like this:

- I plug in a USB stick with a bunch of .ini, .pov and .whathaveyou files on it;
maybe some additional "render this!" list of .ini files

- My humble, ever-ready servant notices (maybe after I press a key if it can't
be helped) and copies the stuff from the stick to his local hard disk

- After he's done, he goes "beep" (so I know I can remove the USB stick) and
starts a MegaPoV task to crunch away on the scene (or maybe a few tasks more,
if it's an animation; it'll be a quad-core system) - unless he's quite busy
crunching away on other scenes already, in which case he enqueues the
additional one for later processing.

- I unplug the USB stick and mind my own business

- Whenever he's done with crunching on any particular scene, he goes "beep"
again, and goes on crunching away on any enqueued scenes

- Next time I plug in the USB stick, my happy servant copies the results of all
his already-finished crunching to the stick, and of course looks if I have new
fodder for him.

Anyone set up something along these lines already, and can help me save a lot of
script writing? Doesn't have to be USB based - a LAN-based approach would be ok
as well for starters.


Christoph

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