openMosix was a

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

cluster may refer to: Science and technology Astronomy * Cluster (spacecraft), constellation of four European Space Agency spacecraft * Asteroid cluster, a small asteroid family * Cluster II (spacecraft), a European Space Agency mission to study th ...

management system that provided single-system image (SSI) capabilities, e.g. automatic work distribution among nodes. It allowed program processes (not threads) to migrate to machines in the node's

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

that would be able to run that process faster (

process migration In computing, process migration is a specialized form of process management whereby processes are moved from one computing environment to another. This originated in distributed computing, but is now used more widely. On multicore machines (mult ...

). It was particularly useful for running parallel applications having low to moderate

input/output In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signal ...

(I/O). It was released as a

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...

patch, but was also available on specialized

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading fr ...

s. openMosix development has been halted by its developers, but the LinuxPMI project is continuing development of the former openMosix code.

History

openMosix was originally

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods ei ...

ed from MOSIX by Moshe Bar on February 10, 2002 when MOSIX became

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and ...

. openMosix was considered stable on

2.4.x for the

x86 architecture x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

, but porting to Linux 2.6 kernel remained in the alpha stage. Support for the 64-bit

AMD64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...

architecture only started with the 2.6 version. On July 15, 2007, Bar announced that the openMOSIX project would reach its end of life on March 1, 2008, due to the decreasing need for single system image (SSI) clustering as low-cost

multi-core processor A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such a ...

s increase in availability. OpenMosix used to be distributed as a

Gentoo Linux Gentoo Linux (pronounced ) is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary software distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for th ...

kernel choice, but it was removed from Gentoo Linux's ''Portage tree'' in February 2007. As of March 1, 2008, openMosix read-only source code is still hosted at SourceForge. The LinuxPMI project is continuing development of the former openMosix code.

ClusterKnoppix

''ClusterKnoppix'' is a specialized

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading ...

based on the

Knoppix KNOPPIX ( ) is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD / DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB), one of the first live operating system distributions (just after Yggdrasil Linux). Knoppix was develope ...

distribution, but which uses the openMosix kernel. Traditionally, clustered computing could only be achieved by setting up individual rsh keys, creating NFS shares, editing host files, setting

static IP An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface identi ...

s, and applying

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learni ...

patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...

es manually. ClusterKnoppix effectively renders most of this work unnecessary. The distribution contains an autoconfiguration system where new ClusterKnoppix-running computers attached to the network automatically join the cluster. ClusterKnoppix is a modified Knoppix distro using the OpenMosix kernel.

References

External links

*
openMosixWiki

Original page at wayback archive

ClusterKnoppix at sourceforge.net

Clusterknoppix at distrowatch

Load-Balancing cluster HowTo using ClusterKnoppix
* http://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/clusterKnoppix/ * http://ftp.linux.cz/pub/linux/clusterKnoppix/

openMosix cluster sites

Cluster at National Taras Shevchenko University of KyivHydra
{{DEFAULTSORT:Openmosix Cluster computing Internet Protocol based network software Parallel computing

History

ClusterKnoppix

See also

Live CDs

References

External links

openMosix cluster sites