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Linux Business Hardware

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Penguin Computers 179

Posted by michael from the all-jokes-aside dept.
Pii writes "News.com is running a story about Penguin Computing acquiring Scyld Computing, a company founded by Donald Becker, of linux ethernet driver and Beowulf cluster fame. Becker will stay on as Penguin's Chief Technology Officer, and the companies claim they don't expect any layoffs as a result of the merger."
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Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Penguin Computers More

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Penguin Computers

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  • Beowulf cluster (Score:4, Funny)

    by MoonFog ( 586818 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @02:56PM (#6164142)
    The topic alone makes the next 100 posts redundant..

  • Good. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Usquebaugh ( 230216 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @02:57PM (#6164146)
    Prehaps now they'll have enough time to get the DEC Tulip driver working 100%

  • Layoffs... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...the 2 workers at each company were relieved to here today that their jobs were no in jeopardy.

    • Re:Layoffs... (Score:4, Funny)

      by MyHair ( 589485 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @04:01PM (#6164862) Journal
      ...the 2 workers at each company were relieved to here today that their jobs were no in jeopardy.

      However, they are very concerned about the announced 10% in staff reduction.
    • The worst effect might be that Becker's email address will change AGAIN.

      In fact this gets me thinking: thousands of people (or more?) have registered domains for personal use (joe-bloggs.net etc.), to post info about themself and to provide an email address that will never change. Why not have a TLD for this purpose? (eg .per (for Person(al)))

  • Anyone actually use a beowolf cluster? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dspyder ( 563303 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @02:59PM (#6164178)
    Just curious (in a serious way), is anybody actually using a beowolf cluster for anything important? Anything that couldn't be done with a super-powerful single machine?

    --D

  • Becker rules (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Giant Ape Skeleton ( 638834 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:00PM (#6164185) Homepage
    I remember one of my earliest Linux experiences involved trying to get a gateway PC with one of those weird generic 3Cxxx based integrated NICs working with Debian (my first distro).

    I posted newbieshly to a Debian NG and amidst the flames and RTFM's, Donald Becker actually took the time to provide me with the solution.

    This experience encouraged me to continue learning Linux networking, and the rest is (obscure) history.... :-)

    • Re:Becker rules (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Etyenne ( 4915 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:22PM (#6164455)
      Yep, I second that. Don Becker is one of the most accessible kernel hacker I know of. A colleague here exchanged a few email with him concerning a misbehaving NIC (D-Link DFE-530TX rev A3-1) and he was really helpful. Considering this man earn a living consulting, I think the free help with troubleshooting from his part was very generous. He really have the quality of his driver at heart.
    • Agreed, Becker is a gentleman and a scholar... and I don't think most people realize how many of the Ethernet drivers he has personally written...
    • The Linux IDE guy, also rules. ATA66, ATA100, SATA, thank you Andre! He helped me sort out a caching IDE controller once via private email.
    • I remember his helping me get a cheap clone of an NE2000 card working on my 386sx.

      At his prompting, I did some very minor driver tweaking. I was struting for weeks because I'd not only 'helped' a real linux developer find a problem with an obscure card, but had written linux kernel code!

      Even if all I did was tweak some compile time parameters by following explicit instructions.

      I also remember being stunned that that 386sx was so much faster (opening xterms, etc) than the room full of Sparcs in the nearby

  • Imagine (Score:4, Funny)

    by stinky wizzleteats ( 552063 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:00PM (#6164189) Homepage Journal

    A Beowulf cluster of resurgent troll jokes.

  • Imagine! (Score:4, Funny)

    by SPiKe ( 19306 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:00PM (#6164197)
    A Beowulf Cluster of Beowulf Clustering Companies ... shenanigans.

  • wow (Score:2, Funny)

    by PukkaStoryTeller ( 661614 )
    imagine a beowulf cluster of beowulf clusters

  • Oh yeah? Well... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:03PM (#6164227)
    Imagine a Penguin cluster of a Beowulf Penguin cluster of clusters of Penguins and Beowulfs surrounded by clusters of Beowins and Pengowulfs which are then clustered together into a nice, neat, little cluster.

    Betcha can't imagine that. So there!

  • how (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ryan Stortz ( 598060 ) <.ryan0rz. .at. .gmail.com.> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:04PM (#6164235)
    How do you rate the article as troll?

  • Clusters, a ridiculous liberal myth (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:04PM (#6164244)
    Have you ever heard clusters mentioned in literature prior to 1960? No? That's because liberal scientists invented the concept of Beowulf Clusters to push their hippie Communist principles through false benchmark numbers telling us the pervasive lie that sharing resources evenly is the most efficient method. Don't buy it.

  • lay-offs (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:05PM (#6164248)
    the two companies don't expect to lay off any staff, a representative said

    Right, so they'll have 2 PR divisions, 2 marketing divisions, ... The key word here is "expect". My former company's management didn't expect layoffs either, but funnily enough they did 6 rounds before sinking completely.

    This said, Donald Becker is cool, Penguin Computing is cool (I toyed with an alpha box from them for a while and I was very inpressed), so I reckon the result should be uber-cool.

    • Re:lay-offs (Score:4, Informative)

      by gmack ( 197796 ) <gmack@NOSpAm.innerfire.net> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:30PM (#6164532) Homepage Journal
      divisions? The 2 companies combined only amount to 35 people.

    • Re:lay-offs (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BlueShades ( 646315 )
      Right, so they'll have 2 PR divisions, 2 marketing divisions, ... The key word here is "expect". My former company's management didn't expect layoffs either, but funnily enough they did 6 rounds before sinking completely.

      If you read the article, you would have seen that both companies are keeping their perspective names and business model the way it is. The only thing that is merging is the cluster technology on their systems to compete against bigger companies. Doing this, both companies will most likely

  • Great.. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    it's only a matter of time untill the goatse.cx posts show up on the front page...

    Other headlines to show up soon:

    1. In Soviet Russia, hackers hack YOU!
    1. All your base are belong to us, says RIAA
    1. Insensitive clod makes up 90% of all spam on the internet

  • Imagine... (Score:2, Funny)

    by griffjon ( 14945 )
    All the computers that could be extracted from the Beowulf clusters this new company will have!

  • I f*king LOVE Penguin Computing!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by smitty45 ( 657682 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:11PM (#6164320)
    those guys are great, and congrats to them. I have fond memories of walking down to their office on Mission St, and carrying one of their new 2U boxes down to where I worked. When we opened the box, not only did we find a machine that is still running right now (over 2 years) but a couple of cool tshirts.

    • Amen to that. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pr0ntab ( 632466 )
      I've got about 9 plushie penguins sitting on my desk (hint, that's how many Altus's we have running our nasty compute jobs)

      I am QUITE CERTAIN this merger will mean even more gnarly Penguin configurations!

      Sun better watch the hell out. (go ahead fanboys, flame away)
  • Hey!!!
    Thats mine line.
    I will now sue you under the DMCA for copyright infringement and circumventing my right to say my line!

  • Won't stay up (Score:5, Funny)

    by red_dragon ( 1761 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:16PM (#6164376) Homepage

    Everyone knows that you can't keep a Beowulf cluster of penguins up for too long; the nodes will all go down as soon as a plane flies over them and trash your uptime.

    Whoops. [urbanlegends.com]

    • According to Captain Lucas, ... She says the Penguins actually hate the noise and scatter as the planes approach the beach.

      I just imagined a bunch of RAF pilots out flying around trying this, and that image was just about as funny as the penquins falling over.
    • I heard this story from an old RAF hand who was out there in WWII days.

      He told me that they routinely showed it to visiting brass (note the absence of the word top).

      I suspect it works if you use a prop plane. Or maybe they just got bored of falling over all the time.

  • Another form of control (Score:3, Funny)

    by stinky wizzleteats ( 552063 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @03:35PM (#6164587) Homepage Journal

    As I think more about it, it's very strange to me that this story was posted on Tuesday. As in troll Tuesday.

    What if there's a grand conspiracy involving Slashdot, the trolls, and a higher level of consciousness related to both?! What if the war between them is simply a stage on which to act out and therefore express the human tendency to resist authority, and, as such, to sanction it?!

    Oh, the horror! The agonizing, cold truth!

    ...

    Ok, which door was it again?

  • Execellent (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nomadlogic ( 91566 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @04:09PM (#6164961)
    well this is great news. i work for a visual fx company and we pretty much use Penguin gear for our render farms and IT infrastructure. These guys have great gear and great prices...so this sounds great.

    I thought Scyld was based in Anapolis Md. will they be moving out to Cali?

    • We have moved to different offices in Annapolis about a mile away from our original location. The view isn't as nice, but the new office space has a machine room that is about three times the size of the small office that we previously used.

  • Name for a Beowulf cluster of penguin computers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @04:47PM (#6165301) Journal
    And this is our supercomputing center.... also known as "the flock?"

    I wonder what they'd call something like this. What do you call a linked group of processing computers? Maybe it depends on purpose - like "the armada" for military Beowulfs, or perhaps the "inquisition" for the RIAA
  • It's cool that Donald got this deal, a lot of linux users owe him a great deal.

  • (pretty visual, but funny anyway)

    A guy wants to have sex for money, but hes has only got $10.

    He asks a first whore, but she says she doesn't dump prices.

    He asks another one, but she says the lowest she gives is blowjobs and those cost $20

    This continues until he finds one who tells him "For $10, I will do the Penguin to you".
    The guy agrees and she lowers his pants, only to run away with the $10.

    The guy grabs his pants and limps after the girl, shouting "My money !" (this is the visual part)

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