Dell-made 16-node cluster: 2006 version

My third cluster from Dell Inc.

• Linux Cluster from Dell Inc. under support from National Science Foundation
• 16 nodes, 2 Xeon processors (2.3 GHz), and 2 GB memory per node
• Queuing system: Platform Lava, Platform Computing Inc.
• Programming Language: Intel FORTRAN 90 and Intel C/C++
• Library Installed: BLAS, BLACS, ATLAS, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK, OPENMPI
  

Home-made 16-PC cluster: 2001 version

My second cluster in 2001

• Composed of 16 PCs sharing ONE keyboard, monitor, and mouse
• Red Hat Linux 7.2 installed
• Connected to a private network by a data switch
• More than 30 times faster than Pentium 1.0 GHz system

Home-made 4-PC cluster: 1997 version

My first cluster in 1997

Specification
CPU: Pentium II 450MHz
Memory: 128MB
Network card: Netgear FX310, 100/10MBPS Ethernet card
Switch: Netgear 8 port, 100/10MBPS Ethernet switch
KVM sharing device: Belkin Omni Cube 4 port

Conditions for Equilibrium

"The condition of statistical equilibrium is given by the most probable condition of a closed system, and therefore the entropy is a maximum when a closed system is in the equilibrium condition."
--- Elementary Statistical Physics by C. Kittel ---

Kmail Backup

Using Ubuntu Linux, I somehow have to backup my files associated to Kontact applications such as Kmail, Kalendar, and Knote. The followings are files and directories under a user home directory, used by each of the applications.

1. Kmail:
.kde/share/apps/kmail/
.kde/share/config/kmailrc

2. You can export a current Calendar in Kontact as "iCalendar" format, save it with a unique name in a directory, and add it to Calendar again. Do not need to backup the files under .kde directory. "To-do List" and "Journal" are also included in the "iCalendar" file of the ".ics" extension.

3. Knote:
.kde/share/apps/knote/

Replacing characters using vi editor

To replace character "old" by "new" in a file "myfile.txt",

1) Open the file using vi editor:
vi myfile.txt

2) Use keystrokes of Esc, followed by

:1,$s/old/new/

or

:%s/old/new/

which will replace all "old" with "new" within the entire document.

Useful LSF commands

The following commands can be executed in the Linux shell prompt to see status of queuing system, LSF (Load Sharing Facility) from Platform Computing Inc.

• bacct - displays accounting statistics about finished jobs
• bhist - displays historical information about jobs
• bhosts - displays hosts and their static and dynamic resources
• bjobs - displays information about LSF jobs (e.g. bjobs -u all)
  
• bsub - submits a batch job to LSF
• bpeek - displays the stdout and stderr output of an unfinished job
• bqueues - displays information about queues.
• lsclusters - displays configuration information about LSF clusters
• lshosts - displays static resource information about hosts.
• lsid - displays the current LSF version number, the cluster name, and the master host
  name
  
• lsload - displays load information for hosts
• lsinfo - displays all load sharing configuration information
• lsmon (xlsmon) - displays load information for LSF hosts and periodically updates the display
  
• lsrun - submits a task to LSF for execution.