Showing posts with label fractals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fractals. Show all posts

Friday, October 25, 2013

CIS(theta) 2013-2014 October Meeting I Linux Install Fest! 







CIS(theta) 2013-2014 


October 
Meeting I





Linux Install Fest!

 










We downloaded 8 copies the latest version of Ubuntu Desktop 64bit ISO: 13.10 Saucy Salamander. Then we burned 8 DVDs and reinstalled the Linux partition on the first row of 8 PCs in our classroom. I did all the tweaks the following day.






Next week I'll reinstall the 2nd row and the Geek Squad will do all the tweaks. I like to keep the Student Stations very simple. So, we will only tweak as follows:






(1) configure Network (eth0, proxy)


(2) configure Appearence and Brightness 


(3) configure Printers


(4) sudo apt-get update (after setting sources to main).


(5) sudo apt-get upgrade


(6) install WINE


(7) copy VTI to the desktop


(8) extract SAGE to the desktop












September: Administrativa!


Meeting I






(1) Wreath of the Unknown Server: We visited our first ssh server, Colossus, which is still in the switch room though dormant. I set it up for the first time in 1995 running Slackware Linux. Colossus ran for 12 years straight, 24x7 never having to shut down, reboot or even have anything re-installed!






(2) Display Case Unveiled: We took down a ton of fractal prints and ray tracings from Room 429 to the 2 cases on the 1st floor near the art wing. We decorated both cases as best we could and left before anyone saw us. Must have been gremlins.






(3) Recruiting: We decided that we have more than enough qualified CIS(theta) members for this year's Geek Squad, so we tabled that topic.






(4) Planning: We have to wait another 2 weeks 10/4 at which point Ubuntu 13.10 Desktop Edition should be available for a mini install fest. After that, we may use bootable cluster Linux CD distros such as BCCD and pelicanHPC to learn MPI using C++ or Python. We also talked about installing an MPI stack on each hdd along with public key authenticated ssh. We would like to make a fractal zoom animation.






(5) Summary: This year's CIS(theta) team is off to a good start. Shadowfax, our 100 core cluster, is in good hands!




==================================


What we are researching II (Oct+Nov)


MPI, PVM, MOSIX


Fractals, PovRay, Blender


==================================






What we are researching I (Sept)


Look what this school did in the 80s: 


Thomas Jefferson High courses


http://academics.tjhsst.edu/compsci/parallel


Thomas Jefferson High paper


http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/techlab07/BWardPaperQ3-07.pdf


Thomas Jefferson High ftp


http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/techlab07


Thomas Jefferson High teacher


http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer


==================================


Today's Topic:


CIS(theta) 2013-2014 - Linux Install Fest! - Meeting 1


Today's Attendance:


CIS(theta) 2013-2014: 100%


Today's Reading:


Chapter 2: Building Parallel Programs (BPP)


==================================


Membership (alphabetic by first name):


CIS(theta) 2013-2014: BryanS, CheyenneC, DanielG, HarineeN, RichardH, RyanW, TatianaR, TylerK






CIS(theta) 2012-2013: Kyle Seipp


CIS(theta) 2011-2012: Graham Smith, George Abreu, Kenny Krug, LucasEager-Leavitt


CIS(theta) 2010-2011: David Gonzalez, Herbert Kwok, Jay Wong, Josh Granoff, Ryan Hothan


CIS(theta) 2009-2010: Arthur Dysart, Devin Bramble, Jeremy Agostino, Steve Beller


CIS(theta) 2008-2009: Marc Aldorasi, Mitchel Wong


CIS(theta) 2007-2008: Chris Rai, Frank Kotarski, Nathaniel Roman


CIS(theta) 1988-2007: A. Jorge Garcia, Gabriel Garcia, James McLurkin, Joe Bernstein, ... too many to mention here!


==================================











Well, that's all folks!
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Friday, September 27, 2013

CIS(theta) 2013-2014 September: Administrativa - Meeting I 











CIS(theta) 2013-2014

 
September: Administrativa


Meeting I






(1) Wreath of the Unknown Server: We visited our first ssh server, Colossus, which is still in the switch room though dormant. I set it up for the first time in 1995 running Slackware Linux. Colossus ran for 12 years straight, 24x7 never having to shut down, reboot or even have anything re-installed!






(2) Display Case Unveiled: We took down a ton of fractal prints and ray tracings from Room 429 to the 2 cases on the 1st floor near the art wing. We decorated both cases as best we could and left before anyone saw us. Must have been gremlins.






(3) Recruiting: We decided that we have more than enough qualified CIS(theta) members for this year's Geek Squad, so we tabled that topic.






(4) Planning: We have to wait another 2 weeks 10/4 at which point Ubuntu 13.10 Desktop Edition should be available for a mini install fest. After that, we may use bootable cluster Linux CD distros such as BCCD and pelicanHPC to learn MPI using C++ or Python. We also talked about installing an MPI stack on each hdd along with public key authenticated ssh. We would like to make a fractal zoom animation.






(5) Summary: This year's CIS(theta) team is off to a good start. Shadowfax, our 100 core cluster, is in good hands!






==================================


What we are researching I (Sept)


(look what this school did in the 80s and 90s): 


Thomas Jefferson High courses


http://academics.tjhsst.edu/compsci/parallel


Thomas Jefferson High paper


http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/techlab07/BWardPaperQ3-07.pdf


Thomas Jefferson High ftp


http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/techlab07


Thomas Jefferson High teacher


http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer






==================================


Today's Topic:


CIS(theta) 2013-2014 - Administrativa! - Meeting 1






Today's Attendance:


CIS(theta) 2013-2014: 100%






Today's Reading:


Chapter 1: Building Parallel Programs (BPP) using clusters and parallelJava






==================================


Membership (alphabetic by first name):






CIS(theta) 2013-2014: BryanS, CheyenneC, DanielG, HarineeN, RichardH, RyanW, TatianaR, TylerK






CIS(theta) 2012-2013: Kyle Seipp






CIS(theta) 2011-2012: Graham Smith, George Abreu, Kenny Krug, LucasEager-Leavitt






CIS(theta) 2010-2011: David Gonzalez, Herbert Kwok, Jay Wong, Josh Granoff, Ryan Hothan






CIS(theta) 2009-2010: Arthur Dysart, Devin Bramble, Jeremy Agostino, Steve Beller






CIS(theta) 2008-2009: Marc Aldorasi, Mitchel Wong






CIS(theta) 2007-2008: Chris Rai, Frank Kotarski, Nathaniel Roman






CIS(theta) 1988-2007: A. Jorge Garcia, Gabriel Garcia, James McLurkin, Joe Bernstein, ... too many to mention here!






==================================











Well, that's all folks!
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Friday, December 14, 2012

CIS(theta) 2012-2013: December Update!

Computing Independent Study 2012-2013

DECEMBER UPDATE
We finally had a chance to meet this month in our new PC Lab! We got pelicanHPC to run 3 cores at about 1.2 GFLOPS. We have AMD Phenom IIs. These CPUs are supposed to be quad-cores. It seems one core is dead. Even so, that's not a bad start. However, we could only run pelican in SMP mode. We could not PXE boot any other nodes. We are also looking into Flame Fractals.
********************

NOVEMBER UPDATE
Sorry to say that we had no meetings this month. I was hoping for 3 meetings, but Hurricane Sandy changed everything! We are in a new room where we may be able to try out liveLinux CD based MPI clusters next month. Stay tuned!
********************

 OCTOBER UPDATE #2
That was a great meeting today! We burned 8 CDs of Precise Pangolin and reinstalled the whole back row of our PC LAB/Classroom. Many thanx go to Jeremy for coming to vist today and lending a hand! Here's the steps we followed for a minimal install of the Student Stations (64bit Athlons):
Step1: 
Reboot each Linux box with the current  CD. Answer some basic questions about time zone, userid, passwd, no login on bootup, etc.
Step2:
Reboot each Linux box without the CD. Make sure to configure the gigE cards and proxy server:
IP: 10.5.129.x
NetMask:255.255.0.0
GateWay: 10.5.0.254
DNS: 10.5.0.254
Proxy: 10.0.0.125
Step3:
Configure System Settings as desired (unit circle trig calculator background, no screensaver, etc).
Step4: 
We had to switch Software Sources in the Ubuntu Software Center (edit/source) to Main before this would work:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Step5:
Now, we could use the Ubuntu Software Center to install WINE.
Step6:
I copied my VTI83 and VTI89 directories from my memory stick to the Desktop. Then, after editing preferences to have VTI open with WINE, I configured each calculator.
Step7:
I will edit my /etc/crontabs tomorrow....
Step8:
We haven't decided what else we may have to install (local SAGE server, JRE, openSSH, openMPI,etc). We'll have to think about that! Here's some info on install fests from prior years:
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/05/2-so-many-hard-drives-so-little-time.html
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/01/then-god-mage-midterm-week-and-saw-that.html
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2010/06/so-many-linux-distros-so-little-time.html
********************
OCTOBER UPDATE
We decided to try out the new Ubuntu Linux 64bit Desktop 12.04 nicknamed Precise Pangolin. So we surfed on over to http://www.ubuntu.com and downloaded the latest ISO. We burned the CD, rebooted a guinea pig box and reinstalled it. This should be a simple procedure as we no longer use dualboot or dualnic boxes. However, we ran into a SNAFU right away! Intranet gigE works fine, but we can't get on the Internet? OOPs, we forgot the network proxy. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

Ubuntu Release History
4.10 Warty Warthog (mammal)
5.04 Hoary Hedgehog (mammal)
5.10 Breezy Badger (mammal)
6.06 Dapper Drake (bird)
6.10 Edgy Eft (amphibian)
7.04 Feisty Faun (mammal)
7.10 Gutsy Gibbon (mammal)
8.04 Hardy Heron (bird)
8.10 Intrepid Ibex (mammal)
9.04 Jaunty Jackalope (mythical beast)
9.10 Karmic Koala (mammal)
10.04 Lucid Lynx (mammal) 
10.10 Maverick Meerkat (mammal) 
11.04 Natty Narwahl (mammal) 
11.10 Oneiric Ocelot (mammal) 
12.04 Precise Pangolin (mammal) 
12.10 Quantal Quetzal (bird) release: 10/18

Guardian, our ssh server, is running 10.04 32bit. Guardian has a dualcore 32bit intel Xeon processor with 2GB RAM and a 512GB RAID drive.

Caprica, our ftp server, is running 10.04 32bit. Caprica has a dualcore 32bit intel Xeon processor with 2GB RAM and a 512GB RAID drive.

Shadowfax, our teacher station, is running 11.10 32bit. Shadowfax has a dualcore 64bit amd Athlon processor with 2GB RAM and a 256GB hdd. We use a 32bit OS here as SmartNotebook doesn't run on 64bit....

Alpha-Omega, our student stations, are running 11.04 64bit. These Linux boxes, like Shadowfax, have dualcore 64bit amd Athlon processors with 2GB RAM and a 256GB hdd.

We are only upgrading Alpha-Omega to 12.04 (or 12.10 if it's available when we upgrade in a couple of weeks). We are also waiting for a hardware upgrade for Alpha-Omega to amd quadcore Phenoms!
********************

SEPTEMBER UPDATE
We had our traditional first organizational meeting:

(1) Wreath of the Unknown Server: 
We visited our first ssh server, Colossus, which is still in the switch room though dormant. I set it up for the first time in 1995 running Slackware Linux. Colossus ran for 12 years straight, 24x7 never having to shut down, reboot or even have anything re-installed! Colossus would not die. We finally just replaced Colossus with a dual-core Intel Xeon box complete with a RAID drive running 1TB. Old Linux boxes never die, they just fade away...


(2) Display Case Unveiled: 
We took down a ton of fractal prints and ray tracings from Room 429 to the 2 cases on the 1st floor near the art wing. We decorated both cases as best we could and left before anyone saw us. Must have been gremlins.

(3) Recruiting 2012: 
We decided that we did not have a good pool of candidates to recruit more CIS(theta) members for this year's Geek Squad, so we tabled that topic.

(4) Planing 2012: 
Next meeting would have been 9/28 but that's Yum Kipur. So, we have to wait another 2 weeks after that for 10/10 at which point Ubuntu Precise Pangolin 64bit release 12.10 Desktop Edition should be available for a mini install fest. After that, we may use bootable cluster Linux CD distros to learn MPI.
==================================
What we are researching I (Sept)
(look what this school did in the 80s): 
Thomas Jefferson High courses
http://academics.tjhsst.edu/compsci/parallel/
Thomas Jefferson High paper
http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/techlab07/BWardPaperQ3-07.pdf
Thomas Jefferson High ftp
http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/techlab07/
Thomas Jefferson High teacher
http://www.tjhsst.edu/~rlatimer/
What we are researching II (Oct)
(clustering environments): 
Parallel Virtual Machine
http://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/
openMOSIX
http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/instant_openmosix_clusters.html
Message Passing Interface
http://www.open-mpi.org/
What we are researching III (Dec)
(clustering environments): 
Cluster By Night
BCCD
pelicanHPC
Flame Fractals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal_flame
==================================
Today's Topic:
CIS(theta) 2012-2013 - PelicanHPC


Today's Attendance:
CIS(theta) 2012-2013: Kyle Seipp


Today's Reading:
Chapter 3: Building Parallel Programs (BPP) using clusters and parallelJava
==================================
Membership (alphabetic by first name):
CIS(theta) 2012-2013: 
Kyle Seipp

CIS(theta) 2011-2012: 
Graham Smith, George Abreu, Kenny Krug, LucasEager-Leavitt

CIS(theta) 2010-2011: 
David Gonzalez, Herbert Kwok, Jay Wong, Josh Granoff, Ryan Hothan

CIS(theta) 2009-2010: 
Arthur Dysart*, Devin Bramble, Jeremy Agostino, Steve Beller

CIS(theta) 2008-2009: 
Marc Aldorasi, Mitchel Wong*

CIS(theta) 2007-2008: 
Chris Rai, Frank Kotarski, Nathaniel Roman

CIS(theta) 1988-2007: 
A. Jorge Garcia, Gabriel Garcia, James McLurkin, Joe Bernstein, ... too many to mention here!

*nonFB
==================================
Well, that's all folks, enjoy!
Happy Clustering,
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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

CIS(theta) 2011-2012 - Introductory Meeting - Meeting I

What was discussed:
We've been building clusters for some time now! We used PVM in the late 1990s. Until recently we were using openMOSIX, but that project closed. Lately we've been trying to get openMPI to work with out new multi-core 64bit hardware.

Once we got a cluster running, we have done some Large Integer number crunching (Beal, Mersenne) as well as graphics applications such as Fractals vs Ray Tracing (povray). This year, we may try our hand at animation (blender). We decorated the room and a display case with some framed zazzle prints of fractals and ray tracings.

What was accomplished:
All my computers were replaced last week. School started this week. We didn't have a lot of time to install anything. So, here's a minimal install for my students to get some work done! We tried the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) every Linux box. So, we didn't install SAGE/JRE or WINE/VTI on the Student Stations. I may add VTI if they need it. We are running SAGE online.
(1a) Installed 32bit Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 on all 24 Student Stations (KISS plain vanilla install)
(1b) Installed 32bit Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 on both Servers (password login enabled)
(1c) Installed 32bit Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 on the Teacher Station (password login enabled)
(2) Dissabled the ScreenSaver and enabled Ethernet (10.5.129.1-10.5.129.25, 255.255.0.0, 10.5.0.254, 10.1.1.19) + Printing on all stations (10.10.254.212)

(3) Servers also got:
(3a) vsFTP 
(3b) openSSH

(4) Teacher Station also got (in addition to configuring a slow mouse and bluetooth for my tablet):
(4a) Flash to watch YouTubes
(4b) Chrome for eSchool (only need VLC for HandBrake and DVDlib, Chrome plays *.mp4s )
(4c) Xournal pen app for tablet (will add SmartNotebook later)
(4d) WINE to run Virtual TI (VTI)
(4e) didn't have time for JRE (3D graphs in SAGE + screencast-o-matic) but we will...

UPDATES:
(1) I tried Xournal on the Teacher Station for a while as a pen app but using the tablet it was really hard to see the pointer! My SmartBoard is still down, I couldn't use Xournal on there. So, I went to http://www.smarttech.com and tried http://express.smarttech.com which is an online SmartNotebook. This solution has the opposite problem. You get a pen and a mouse pointer at the same time! That's too cumbersome to use. So, I broke down and installed the Linux version of SmartNotebook 10.2 which comes as a *.gz file. I extracted that file and found a pile of *.debs to install in a directory called dists/stable/multiverse. All is well with the world of SmartNotebook!
(2) I installed JRE 1.6.0_27 in Firefox and it automagically works in Chrome as well. This way I can do animated 3D graphs in SAGE with viewer='jmol' which is the default in show(). The Student Stations can do 3D graphs in SAGE but they need to use .show(viewer='tachyon') and they don't get to animate the graphs. So, I have JRE joy!
(3) I tried also installed JRE so as to get http://screencast-o-matic.com (SOM) working. SOM captures the video of my screencast and renders *.mp4s for YouTube.
(4) for more detailed installation instructions please see, http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/05/2-so-many-hard-drives-so-little-time.html

What we are researching (look what this school did in the 80s and 90s): 

Today's Topic: 
CIS(theta) 2011-2012 - Introductory Meeting - Meeting I

Today's Attendance: 
CIS(theta) 2011-2012: GeorgeA, GrahamS, KennyK, LucasE

Today's Reading:
Chapter 1 Building Parallel Programs (BPP) using clusters and parallelJava

Well, that's enough food for thought, enjoy!

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

CIS(theta) Meeting X (2010-2011) - Time to switch gears!

Aim: 
Time to switch gears!

Attending: 




The school networks were down this week. So, we didn't get much done except for talking a lot! We decided that we should look into alternatives to the cluster solutions we've been trying of late. See the readings and research sections above for some ideas.



Maybe we should just break down and install openMPI directly onto our Ubuntu Desktop? What about fractal renderings, povray scenes and blender sequences using non-traditional clusters? It may be time for a change! 



Well, that's all for this week!  Please stay tuned.  We hope this record will help others trying to make their own clusters.  Also, if you have any hints or pointers, please leave a comment to let us know.  

Happy Clustering,
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