[luau] My teacher let me this project!!!

[Nicholas E. Walker]

> So like can you see I'm desperate, can anyone help me????

Felipe,

In addition to http://www.scyld.com/ (a company who sells software to
make clusters (clusters are groups of PCs working together)), you can
take a look at:

Frequently Asked Questions about Beowulfs:
(Beowulfs are clusters made out of PCs running Linux)
http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/beowulf-faq.txt

IBM's cluster tutorial (you need to register for this, but it is free
and online):
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/esdd/tutorials/clustering.html

The Beowulf HOWTO (a lot of descriptions):
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Beowulf-HOWTO.html

"How to build a Beowulf Linux cluster":
http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/bookshelf/articles/how_to_build_a_cluster.html

If you are looking for a simple explanation, here's mine:

There are three ways for computers to work very quickly, and each one
needs programs to be written in a different way.  The first way is to
have one computer with a very fast CPU; this computer runs one program
one step at a time, and does it very quickly.

The second way is to have one copmuter with several CPUs; this computer 
will run more than one part of a program at the same time.  All of the 
parts are running on the same computer, so they have access to the same 
information in the computer's memory, but they have to be written so 
more than one part can run at the same time.

The first two ways cost a lot more money than the third way.

The third way is to have a lot of PCs that can talk to the others very
quickly.  This is done by making them all part of the same network.
Programs for this type of system need to be written in lots of small
parts.  The parts will be divided up by a "master" PC and given to the
other PCs.  The other PCs will do the work and send the result to the
master when they are done.  Each part runs on a different PC, so they do
not share the same memory.  This means they have to talk over the
network if they need to work together.  This is slower than sharing
memory, but because you can buy more PCs the third way is faster and
cheaper in the end.

An example of the third way is rendering 3D pictures (like Toy Story).
Instead of having one computer drawing the entire picture, you can give
a small part of the picture to each PC.  When the PCs are all done, you
put together the pieces and have the whole picture.

I hope this helps.

Nicholas