[aclug-L] My Boewulf... sorta

[Jonathan Hall <jonhall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I have, in a manner of speaking, a Boewulf cluster in my bedroom now. 
I don't know if it technically qualifies as a Boewulf, but I think it does.

I have the following computers:

AMD K6-III/450
Dual Intel Pentium 233Mhz MMX
Intel Pentium 120Mhz
Intel Pentium 100Mhz
(had for a while but was too slow) Cyrix 486SLC2 66Mhz

The task:

Converting my entire CD collection to MP3s for more compact storage, easier
transportation between work & home, etc.

The implimentation:

I have the K6-III (my workstation) ripping the CD audio files to .wav's.
I then have a collection of bash scripts that then take the .wav files and,
one by one, scp them to one of the remote machines (or for the K6-III, just
moves the file to a temporary directory), then encodes the file to an MP3,
and moves it back to my workstation.

Results:

I'm able to encode from WAV to MP3 *almost* as fast as my 24x SCSI CD-ROM
drive can rip CDs.  When I get my new K6-2/400, I should be able to keep up
nicely.  If I can match my CD-ROM drive's speed, I'll be happy.

I can probably outperform John's 600Mhz Alpha with this setup, when encoding
4-5 MP3s at once (when encoding a single MP3, John still obviously wins, b/c
he can contribute the entire 600Mhz to the encoding, whereas I only get to
utilize my full 1136Mhz when encoding 5 MP3s at once :-)  John still may win
even when doing 4-5 MP3s at once, b/c he doesn't have to transfer his MP3s
over 10mbit ethernet to each of his nodes.  :-)

Well, I guess that's all I have to say about that.  It's kind of a fun
little project. :-)



P.S. I hope you don't mind me using your computer as a comparison, John. 
BTW, what kind of encode-time/play-time ratio do you get when encoding MP3s
on your Alpha @ 128kbps?  (I'm using 8hz-mp3... which encoder do you use?)
:-)


--
'640K ought to be enough for anybody.' - Bill Gates, 1981
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