Hardware
and Software Requirements
If you use our live-CD,
there are NO software requirements. In terms of hardware, you must have
an Intel-compatible processor and be able to run a CD. Here are the
specifics.
If you are using our live-CD, the minimum recommended equipment is a
desktop system with an
x86 processor and the following minimum specifications: 330 MHz cpu,
64MB of RAM, an 8x
CD-ROM (or CD-DVD) drive, a VGA compatible video card, a standard
monitor, a keyboard, a
three button PS/2 mouse (but most other mice also work), and a
boot-from-CD capability.
The live-CD should support most hardware configurations. Many
times, the live-CD system can
ignore hardware it does not support and everything will work for the
purpose of programming or
emulating an MPI-enabled supercomputer. However, certain
specific makes, models and
versions of hardware may defeat successful booting of the live-CD
product including, but not
limited to, video hardware, some early SATA controllers, RAID or other
types of non-standard or
uncommon hard drives, and certain specialized hardware found on older
or especially innovative
laptop computers.
If the student has access to an MPI-capable system, the live-CD is not
an absolute requirement
for running the programs and exercises. Although we still
recommend the live-CD because the
exercises were designed and tested with this medium, here are some
suggestions (no guarantees!)
about other ways that have a chance of running the programs. We have
successfully run these
exercises on other systems. The basic requirement is a proper
installation of MPICH and gcc 3.3
(newer versions of gcc that are backward compatible with 3.3 also seem
to work). The various
computers and systems which have successfully run the programming
exercises of
Supercomputing Simplified include desktop and laptop
computers using standard Intel and
AMD processors running under Debian Sarge, Fedora Core 4, and Ubuntu
7.0 Linux. In
addition, an Apple iBook with a g4 processor running BSD can be made to
work once MPICH
and gcc 3.3/4.0 are properly installed by the user. Please
let us know what systems do or do not
work for you!
If you have your own supercomputer or cluster running with MPI, the
programs may or may not
work because we do not know its hardware/software
configuration. If you have your own cluster
and find out the programs work, then we would like to hear from
you! If have your own cluster
and find out the programs do not work, then we would like to hear from
you!