Greetings.

I just put my hands on a 386/DX40 motherboard and processor + 4MB  RAM (no
387, but I might get
one. Also, no HDD, no monitor, just some horsepower). I'm planning to do the
following: I'll boot Linux from the 1.44 FDD and make a 2MB Ram disk. I'll
copy PVM there and will connect the 386 to my K6/233 via a serial cable. Is
this possible? I mean, if it is, it's surely worth the headache if I'll have
this extra tiny bit of rendering power... Any ideas?

Peter

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Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> writes:

>   I'm probably going to get this all wrong but here it is.
> With computers you will find that the fastest system speed
> you can obtain is equal to your slowest piece of hardware.
> It might add a little more cpu power but because of the buss
> speed and cpu speed you will probably slow down everything
> to the speed of the 386DX40.
> A no gain situation.
> But I'm probably wrong again.

You are. :) PVM doles out small portions to each machine as they
finish, so the faster machines get more of the work.
However, the machine he has in mind would be useless for this, as it
has no hard drive and this no place to swap--and any scene that would
fit in the .5 meg or so that he would have left after the kernel and
ramdisk wouldn't need to be split up.

Shalon Wood

-- 
People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die.
--Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban

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On the other hand, for VERY LITTLE money, you can buy an ABIT BH6
motherboard (or several motherboards) connect them in a diskless boot
arrangement from a master node and run pvmpov like a Cray T3 (or
faster).

JK


Shalon Wood wrote:
> 
> Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> writes:
> 
> >   I'm probably going to get this all wrong but here it is.
> > With computers you will find that the fastest system speed
> > you can obtain is equal to your slowest piece of hardware.
> > It might add a little more cpu power but because of the buss
> > speed and cpu speed you will probably slow down everything
> > to the speed of the 386DX40.
> > A no gain situation.
> > But I'm probably wrong again.
> 
> You are. :) PVM doles out small portions to each machine as they
> finish, so the faster machines get more of the work.
> However, the machine he has in mind would be useless for this, as it
> has no hard drive and this no place to swap--and any scene that would
> fit in the .5 meg or so that he would have left after the kernel and
> ramdisk wouldn't need to be split up.
> 
> Shalon Wood
> 
> --
> People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die.
> --Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban

-- 
CRAK Software (Password Recovery Software)
Http://www.crak.com
joh### [at] crakcom
602 863 9274 or 1 800 505 2725 In the USA

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