6.3. Requirements

As the purpose of PlumpOS is to add nodes to a cluster, it is assumed that you already have a running openMosix cluster -- or perhaps only a single openMosix node -- from which you will be initiating jobs. All machines in the cluster must conform to the following requirements:

• PlumpOS Machine(s) 586+ CPU

• bootable CD-ROM drive

• Network Interface Card

• Between 32M and 128M of RAM. Because of some oddities in the openMosix kernels at the time of this writing, simply passing the size of the ramdisk is not working so one has to actually use a ramdisk pre-made for a specific size. There should be several ramdisks avaliable at PlumpOS mirrors which can be placed in the disks' root directory on the actual cdrom ISO (or rootdisk/disks/ if you're inside the PlumpOS package directory).

• Master Machine(s) GNU/Linux/openMosix kernel (same version as all the PlumpOS kernel you are booting on the Child/Slave PlumpOS Machine(s))

• Network Environment Running DHCP server (if you don't, or won't, run DHCP, you can still manually configure your system: simply go to each PlumpOS machine and enter in your desired configuration information with the supplied networking tools. Using DHCP is highly recommended however, and will greatly simplify your life in the long run.

The following network modules are present in most if not all of the supplied kernels' modules tarball (in /kernels/KERNELNAME/modules.tgz), although not all support auto-probing; if you don't see support for your card in this list, then PlumpOS will not work for you.

3c501.o, 3c503.o, 3c505.o, 3c507.o, 3c509.o, 3c515.o, 3c59x.o, 8139cp.o, 8139too.o, 82596.o, ac3200.o, acenic.o, aironet4500_card.o, aironet4500_core.o, aironet4500_proc.o, arlan-proc.o, arlan.o, at1700.o, bsd_comp.o, cs89x0.o, de4x5.o, depca.o, dgrs.o, dl2k.o, dmfe.o, dummy.o, e100/e100.o, e1000/e1000.o, e2100.o, eepro.o, eepro100.o, eexpress.o, epic100.o, eth16i.o, ewrk3.o, fealnx.o, hamachi.o, hp-plus.o, hp.o, hp100.o, lance.o, lp486e.o, mii.o, natsemi.o, ne.o, ne2k-pci.o, ni5010.o, ni52.o, ni65.o, ns83820.o, pcmcia, pcnet32.o, ppp_async.o, ppp_deflate.o, ppp_generic.o, ppp_synctty.o, pppoe.o, pppox.o, sis900.o, sk98lin/sk98lin.o, slhc.o, smc-ultra.o, smc9194.o, starfire.o, strip.o, sundance.o, sungem.o, sunhme.o, tc35815.o, tg3.o, tlan.o, tokenring/{3c359.o abyss.o ibmtr.o lanstreamer.o olympic.o smctr.o tms380tr.o tmsisa.o tmspci.o}, tulip/tulip.o, via-rhine.o, wavelan.o, wd.o, winbond-840.o, wireless/{airo.o airo_cs.o hermes.o orinoco.o orinoco_cs.o orinoco_pci.o orinoco_plx.o}, yellowfin.o

Please also note that PlumpOS may not work on a laptop: it definitely doesn't support PCMCIA cards (yet), and will probably not configure openMosix properly if your machine contains multiple connected Ethernet adapters. This is a temporary limitation of the configuration scripts, and should be resolved in future releases.