Installation on Mercury 1U Cell blade based system

[cellrox]

Hello all,

I am trying to install YDL 6.0 on Mercury 1U Dual Cell Based Blade System (yeah ... I like to know who came up with such a long name)

I am able to sucessfully boot from network and the installer starts. I can connect to the VNC. But the installer does not give me any option to install to NFS. All it shows are standard FC/CentoS options of installing to local disk, which does not exist.

What am I missing?

Thanks,

[cellrox]

for what its worth, this system is same as IBM Cell QS 21. ... So, someone must have installed YDL 6.0 on at least one Cell system. Or is EVERYONE using only PS3?

[ppietro]

for what its worth, this system is same as IBM Cell QS 21. ... So, someone must have installed YDL 6.0 on at least one Cell system. Or is EVERYONE using only PS3?

I'll jump in here for a sec. Most of the questions I answer on this forum are from PS3 owners, followed by a few Mac owners.

Sorry I can't be of more help with your architecture. If you know of any screamingly amazing deals on an IBM let me know! I'd love to be able to test on one of these boxes!

Cheers,
Paul

[cellrox]

Guess I am looking at the wrong distribution! You would think for a distribution focussed on PPC one would actually test and document installation on one of the fastest growing Cell hardware.

fast NFS root installation ... looked promising ....

Fedora, here I come ...

[ppietro]

Guess I am looking at the wrong distribution! You would think for a distribution focussed on PPC one would actually test and document installation on one of the fastest growing Cell hardware.

fast NFS root installation ... looked promising ....

Fedora, here I come ...

Well - this is a community run board. You probably need to talk to TerraSoft directly. We in the community just don't have access to your type of hardware.

I'm sure they'd be very willing and able to help you with this.

As for fastest growing? My guess is that would be the PS3, not the Mercury. As of September 30, 2008, there have been 16.84 million PS3s sold. And - all of them can run Linux on their Cell processor. (reference here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStatio ... tion_costs)

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. Just FYI - based on my experience, my guess is that Fedora would be even harder to set up. It's certainly much more difficult to set up for the PS3

[cellrox]

As for fastest growing? My guess is that would be the PS3, not the Mercury.

I meant the Cell blade from IBM, which is what the mercury system is. And no one makes large scale HPC clusters or installations with PS3. I hardly doubt PS3 is the target audience for YDL. Of the millions sold, I would assume less than 1% actually use linux on PS3 for some useful purpose than for the heck of it.

[billb]

I meant the Cell blade from IBM, which is what the mercury system is. And no one makes large scale HPC clusters or installations with PS3. I hardly doubt PS3 is the target audience for YDL. Of the millions sold, I would assume less than 1% actually use linux on PS3 for some useful purpose than for the heck of it.

It is true that most PS3 owners (or sellers, like Gamestop employees) will give you a "deer in headlights" look when you start talking about running Linux on one. Not that you can't do anything useful with it ... and of course that depends on what you consider to be useful.

As for this forum, there are definitely more regular posters that run YDL on their PS3s than all the other hardware types combined. And as Paul mentioned, most of us simply don't have access to the hardware you're using. Terrasoft employees generally don't monitor this forum closely (as far as I know) And then there's the matter of forums vs. mailing lists ... it seems to me that many "developer-types" and "advanced users" (who might have this kind of hardware) tend to shy away from posting on forums.

I don't know if you're more likely to get a response regarding your question on Terrasoft's mailing lists, but you could try that. I'd suggest this one:

http://lists.terrasoftsolutions.com/mai ... og-general

And of course there's Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux which I mentioned earlier -- the support options are mentioned here:

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/produ ... port.shtml

I see you've already posted on IBM's Cell Broadband Engine Architecture forum recently (was going to suggest that), but with no response yet.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forum ... orumID=739

Anyway ... good luck with it!

[ppietro]

And no one makes large scale HPC clusters or installations with PS3

Nobody? Sony does:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/11/sony ... wk-mayhem/

Academia too:
http://moss.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/

http://gravity.phy.umassd.edu/ps3.html

TerraSoft themselves sells PS3 clusters:
http://tinyurl.com/2un625

Cheers,
Paul

[cellrox]

Well, I hardly consider 8 to be a large scale cluster. But then again, I didnt realize this is the wrong forum to talk about what I am working on.

Yes, a couple have made clusters but those are the early adopters that IBM/Sony/Toshiba fund to get the momentum going. Of course, blades from IBM are the intended result of the momentum. Making a PS3 is much easier than making a server ... trust me, I have been designing and working with servers since hmm .. 8 years for some BIG Tier 1 companies.

Anyway, thanks guys. My bad, I didnt realize this was not the forum for me.

Have fun with your PS3's. I would buy one but I am scared I would spend my earnings and all the time playing games on it.

[billb]

Well, I hardly consider 8 to be a large scale cluster. But then again, I didnt realize this is the wrong forum to talk about what I am working on.

I don't think anyone is saying this is the wrong forum to discuss such things, just that you don't really have any peers with the same hardware posting here. I have to wonder where these guys hide out ... Let us know if you find an active forum for ANY Linux distro running on that hardware, and of course you're welcome to post an install guide if you get it worked out.

Have fun with your PS3's. I would buy one but I am scared I would spend my earnings and all the time playing games on it.

That is a significant risk, indeed.

[ppietro]

Well, I hardly consider 8 to be a large scale cluster.

That's odd - I counted 75 machines (at least) in the Sony cluster.

Yes, a couple have made clusters but those are the early adopters that IBM/Sony/Toshiba fund to get the momentum going. Of course, blades from IBM are the intended result of the momentum.

Well - of the two links I posted, Sony only partially funded one of the academia efforts - and that's because he begged them. The other was self funded.

Which leads me back to my point: the PS3 provides an entry into cluster computing that smaller institutions and even possibly individuals can afford. Don't get me wrong - there's obviously a lot of power in a Blade cluster. But - according to TerraSoft's website: http://tinyurl.com/2un625

a 14 QS22 BladeCenter Chassis is $170,800.00, while a 32 Node PS3 Cluster - with, according to TerraSoft: "a theoretical performance of greater than 5TF!" - is $42,250.00.

And that gets back to the discussion about what the Cell/B.E. is intended for. According to literature for the Cell from IBM: "The Cell Broadband Engine microprocessor was jointly developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM and was designed to bridge the gap between conventional desktop processors and more specialized high-performance processors. Additionally, the processor has potential for use in digital distribution and entertainment systems—as well as for scientific imaging systems and physical simulations. Because game applications often feature highly parallel code for physical simulations and graphical realism, game developers require fast response times and a full-featured programming environment. The Cell Broadband Engine Architecture targets such applications by using a 64-bit multithreaded PowerPC® processor element (PPE) with two levels of globally coherent cache and eight synergistic processor elements (SPEs)."

(from: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs ... design_and )

Although the Cell is based on IBM's POWER architecture - and IBM designed a PowerXCell 8i server variant - it's important to note that in many ways, the Cell/B.E. is a continuation of the work Sony & Toshiba had started with the Emotion Engine (EE) for the PS2.

(If you haven't seen the specs for it, you should check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_Engine )

Making a PS3 is much easier than making a server ... trust me, I have been designing and working with servers since hmm .. 8 years for some BIG Tier 1 companies.

Actually - this Sony server is pretty much a PS3:
http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/ext/ZEGO/ZEGO.shtml

Anyway, thanks guys. My bad, I didnt realize this was not the forum for me.

No worries! It's been a fun discussion.

Have fun with your PS3's. I would buy one but I am scared I would spend my earnings and all the time playing games on it.

Or - you could buy a few to cluster with your Blade. They will interoperate like that under Linux.

Cheers,
Paul

[ppietro]

for what its worth, this system is same as IBM Cell QS 21. ...

[MODERATOR EDIT: Just in case someone searches the forum for this topic]

Installation instructions for Yellow Dog Entprise Linux (YDL 6.0) on IBM QS21/22:
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/suppo ... tall.shtml

Cheers,
Paul