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 Latest News and Updates |
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| A d v e r t i s e m e n t |
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| 2009-06-25 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2 |
| Greg Bruno has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.2, a specialist, CentOS-based distribution designed to make it simple to build high-performance computer clusters: "Rocks 5.2 is released for Linux on the i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures and Solaris for the x86_64 architecture. New features: with the new JumpStart roll one can now install and configure a Linux-based Rocks front-end to 'JumpStart' Solaris-based back-end machines; can assign 'attributes' to nodes at four levels - global, appliance type, OS (e.g., Linux or SunOS), and host; Anaconda installer updated to version 11.1.2.168; isolated MySQL for the Rocks database under /opt/rocks; fix for software RAID partitioning...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further information. Download (MD5): area51.i386.disk1.iso (2,335MB), area51.x86_64.disk1.iso (2,713MB). |
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| 2008-05-01 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.0 |
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| Mason J. Katz has announced the release of Rocks Cluster Distribution 5.0, a CentOS-based distribution designed for building Linux clusters: "Rocks 5.0 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. New Features: 1. Xen support. You can use the Xen roll to create 'VM Containers' - physical machines that are used to hold Xen-based virtual machines. The Rocks Command Line was expanded to help build and maintain virtual machines. 2. Fully programmable partitioning. The partitioning of client nodes (e.g., compute nodes and tile nodes) has been re-tooled. Enhancements: based on CentOS release 5.1 and all updates as of April 29, 2008; Condor updated to 7.0.1; Ganglia monitor core updated to 3.0.7...." Here is the complete release announcement. The installation CD/DVD images, together with specialist "rolls" are available for download from the project's FTP server; see the download page for a list of available files and download instructions. |
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| 2007-07-06 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.3 |
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| Version 4.3 of Rocks Cluster, a specialist distribution based on CentOS, has been released: "Rocks v4.3 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. New features: Rocks command line - initial release of the Rocks command line which facilitates non-SQL administrative access to the database; PXE First - hosts can now be configured in BIOS with a boot order of CD, PXE, hard disk. Enhancements: based on CentOS 4.5 and all updates as of July 4, 2007; Anaconda installer updated to 10.1.1.63; performance improvement when building torrent files for the Avalanche Installer; database indirects, more flexibility with Rocks variables; Globus updated to gt4.0.4 with web services...." See the release announcement for a full list of changes and enhancements. Download (MD5): area51...i386.disk1.iso (3,858MB), area51...x86_64.disk1.iso (4,172MB). |
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| 2006-09-26 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2.1 |
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| Rocks Cluster Distribution has been updated to version 4.2.1: "Rocks v4.2.1 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. This is a maintenance release to Rocks v4.2 which contains bug fixes and usability enhancements." New features in this version include the following: "During Roll selection, the disk ID for CD/DVD-based rolls is displayed under the 'Selected Rolls'; during a front-end install, the IP settings that are provided on the first text-based screen are used as defaults for the graphical screens; minimum memory requirement for compute nodes has been reduced to 512 MB; Bio Roll: Glimmer source and GROMACS v3.3.1 is added and compiled with MPICH support." More details can be found in the release announcement. For download, please visit the project's downloads page for links to ISO images and specialist cluster "rolls". The installation instructions are available here. |
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| 2006-08-11 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2 |
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| Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2, code name "Hallasan", has been released: "Rocks v4.2 is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures. This release supports latest multi-core CPUs from AMD and Intel (a.k.a., Woodcrest)." Among the many new features and enhancements are: several new tools for Bioinformatics computation; graphical installer; restore roll for saving and restoring user account and cluster node information; based on CentOS 4.3 and all updates as of August 6; updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 8; many bug fixes. Read the full release announcement for further information. The core operating system and the various "rolls" are available from the download page; see the Rocks Users Guide for installation instructions. |
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| 2006-06-28 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2 Beta |
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| A beta release of the CentOS-based Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.2 is available for testing. Among the new features and enhancements are: "Beta release of bioinformatics roll - the Bio roll contains tools and utilities to facilitate bioinformatics computation; graphical installer; OS roll based on CentOS 4.3 and all updates as of June 28 2006; updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 8; included tentakel as a cluster-fork alternative; auto-partitioning now creates a /var file system to protect the front-end against services that log many messages and fill up the root file system." Read the release announcement for full details. The new beta release of Rocks Cluster distribution is available for both the i386 and x86_64 architectures and can be downloaded from the project's FTP server. |
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| 2005-10-21 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 |
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| Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 has been released: "Rocks v4.1 is released for i386, x86_64 and ia64 CPU architectures. New Features: the Avalanche Installer uses a BitTorrent tracker to support highly-scalable concurrent compute node installation; creation of the 'Rocks Foundation Class'; new blog-based front-end homepage. Enhancements: OS Roll based on CentOS release 4/update 2 and all updates as of October 18 2005; Updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 6; 'rocks-mirror' modified to build Roll CD sets for any RPM repository; updated MyPhpAdmin to address security issues...." Read the rest of the release announcement for further details. The ISO images of Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 are available from the project's download page. |
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| 2005-09-24 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster 4.1 Beta |
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| The first beta of Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.1 has been released: "Rocks 4.1 Beta is released. New Features: the Avalanche Installer uses a BitTorrent tracker to support highly-scalable concurrent compute node installation; the Avalanche Installer drastically reduces the pressure on the frontend when many compute nodes are concurrently installed; creation of the "Rocks Foundation Class"; new blog-based frontend homepage. Enhancements: OS Roll based on CentOS release 4/update 1 and all updates as of September 21 2005; updated SGE roll to SGE 6 update 6; 'rocks-mirror' modified to build Roll CD sets for any RPM repository...." More details can be found in the release notes. The new release, consisting of a "Rocks Boot Roll" ISO image and two "OS Rolls" ISO images, are available for download for both the i386 and x86_64 architectures. |
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| 2005-06-08 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster Distribution 4.0.0 |
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| A new version of Rocks Cluster Distribution has been released: "Rocks 4.0.0 (Whitney) is now released. This release supports the following CPUs: Athlon, Itanium, Nocona (EM64T), Opteron, and Pentium. Everything is CD-based, unless otherwise specified (Jumbo Rolls are DVD). If you are building a compute cluster, grid endpoint, or a visualization cluster please choose from our following selection...." Read the release announcement for detailed product information and download links. Rocks Cluster is a Red Hat/CentOS-based distribution that allows easy building of Linux cluster computers. |
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| 2005-03-31 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster 4.0.0 Beta |
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| A new development version of Rocks Cluster Distribution has been released for testing: "The beta for Rocks 4.0.0 is released for i386 and for x86_64. Installation procedure: 1. Boot the frontend with the base+ganglia+hpc+kernel roll. 2. When the install process asks for rolls, add the base+ganglia+hpc+kernel and ALL the CentOS CDs. 3. Answer the installation screens. 4. After all the frontend installs, run 'insert-ethers'. ... All comments are welcome - please send feedback regarding the beta to npaci-rocks-discussion at sdsc.edu." See the release announcement for further information and download links. The base CD image can be downloaded from here: base+ganglia+hpc+kernel-31.03.2005-10.05.i386.disk1.iso (413MB). |
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| 2004-10-21 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster 3.3.0 |
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| A new version of the Rocks Cluster distribution has been released: "Rocks 3.3.0 released. If you are building a compute cluster, grid endpoint, or a visualization cluster please choose from our following selection. For example, to build a Pentium compute cluster you must download the base, hpc+kernel, and area51+java+sge rolls. If you wish to build something not on the menu you must choose from our a la carte selection, but make sure to download the required base, hpc, and kernel rolls." See the release announcement with download links for information on which files to download to suit your environment.
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| 2004-05-22 |
Distribution Release: Rocks Cluster 3.2.0 |
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| The Rocks Cluster Distribution project has released Rocks 3.2.0: "Rocks 3.2.0, code named Shasta, is released for Pentium/Athlon, Opteron, and Itanium. This release includes the latest updates from Red Hat (as of May 18th), bug fixes, refreshed rolls and the addition of two new rolls for Pentium/Athlon clusters. The 'Area51 Roll' contains system integrity tools: tripwire and chkrootkit. The 'Condor Roll' adds the distributed high-throughput feature from the Condor project. To download the ISO images for the Rocks Base and Rolls, see Downloads. For more details regarding the release, see the Release Notes." Read the full announcement on the distribution's home page. Download (i386): rocks-disk1-3.2.0.i386.iso (661MB) and roll-hpc-3.2.0-0.i386.iso (282MB).
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| 2004-04-11 |
Development Release: Rocks Cluster 3.2.0 Beta |
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| Rocks Cluster is a new distribution on our list, although by no means a new project, the development of which started back in 2001. As the name suggest, this is a specialist distribution for building clusters. The current stable version is 3.1.0, but a beta version of Rocks Cluster 3.2.0 was released a few days ago: "Rocks 3.2.0 Beta is released into the wild. This beta release includes: support for x86, IA64, Opteron; latest RHEL kernel; 411 startup failure is fixed; ability to network install frontend machines; kickstart graph is now in living color; Postfix replaces Sendmail; ext3 is default filesystem; SGE is upgraded for official Opteron support; SGE qrsh works; several other minor fixes." The release announcement includes download links for x86, ia64 and x86_64 (Opteron) architectures. Get the base ISO for x86 from here: rocks.iso (660MB).
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| September 2009 |
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At one point or another gamers can hit the wall when using other OS systems such as Linux and Mac, as Windows has always been renowned as the OS of choice for the gaming community. In a lot of cases this has changed somewhat over the last few years with the use of virtualization software that helps to bridge that gap, and it can be quite successful to a point. Of course, when you virtualize another OS you can lose some of the performance, than say running a game natively, and with slowdowns and bugs comes frustration. We have listed a few resources that we think are worth a mention for different types of gamers, both online multiplayer and single player, see what you think:
- World of Goo. This is a great puzzle game that will keep you busy for hours, there's also a free playable demo version.
- If you're a online poker enthusiast we can recommend you check out the pokerlistings.com Linux poker page, it has a list of poker apps that are compatible with your OS.
- For the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) crowds you could always take a look at Vendetta online, "thousands of people can play together, at the same time, in a single, persistent universe", sounds great!
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