5.3 Selecting an Installation Approach
Since
openMosix
is a kernel extension, it won't work with just any
kernel. At this time, you are limited to a relatively recent (at
least version 2.4.17 or more recent) IA32-compatible Linux kernel. An
IA64 port is also available. However, don't expect
openMosix to be available for a new kernel the same day a new kernel
is released. It takes time to develop patches for a kernel.
Fortunately, your choice of Linux distributions is fairly broad.
Among others, openMosix has been reported to work on Debian, Gentoo,
Red Hat, and SuSe Linux. If you just want to play with it, you might
consider Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD), Knoppix, or PlumpOS, three
CD-bootable Linux distributions that
include openMosix. You'll also need a reasonably
fast network and a fair amount of swap space to run openMosix.
To build your openMosix cluster, you need to install an openMosix
extended kernel on each of the nodes in the cluster. If you are using
a suitable version of Linux and have no other special needs, you may
be able to download a precompiled version of the kernel. This will
significantly simplify setup. Otherwise, you'll need
to obtain a clean copy of the kernel sources, apply the openMosix
patches to the kernel source code, recompile the sources, and install
the patched kernel. This isn't as difficult as it
might sound, but it is certainly more involved than just installing a
precompiled kernel. Recompiling the kernel is described in detail
later in this chapter. We'll start with
precompiled kernels.
While using a precompiled kernel is the easiest way to go, it has a
few limitations. The documentation is a little weak with the
precompiled kernels, so you won't know exactly what
options have been compiled into the kernel without doing some
digging. (However, the .config files are
available via CVS and the options seem to be reasonable.) If you
already have special needs that required recompiling your kernel,
e.g., nonstandard hardware, don't expect those needs
to go away.
You'll need to use the same version of the patched
kernel on all your systems, so choose accordingly. This
doesn't mean you must use the same kernel image. For
example, you can use different compiles to support different
hardware. But all your kernels should have the same version number.
The openMosix user tools should be downloaded when you download the
openMosix kernel or kernel patches. Additionally, you will also want
to download and install openMosixView,
third-party tools for openMosix.
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