Distributed Computing give+take system?

[TheSpeedoBeast]

I was just in this pushover high school tech class of mine, and was pondering distributed computing systems in my spare time.

I was curious if there is such thing as an open source(-ish) system which allows ones computer to near-continually participate in a distributed computing grid. This grid would consist of your computer spending "x" amount of time doing distributed computing work for other computers around the internet, and that time would translate into "x" amount of time where other computers would do tasks for YOUR computer when needed, in return. (long, drawn out sentence, yes, but do you get the picture? Think: bittorrent for processor cycles!!...)

I just though that it sounded like a really cool way to keep from wasting all of those idle computer cycles, etc. Would this be near-impossible system to implement, or does one already exist, or would this be a doable project? Toss me some input this way, and let me know what you think...

[Dark Ninja]

Well, two things with that:

1.) There are MANY distributed projects on the internet already. All you need to do is download the client for that project and you can help out whenever your system is idle. (Your computer will just donate its cycles.)

2.) I'm sure the idea is feasable for many different systems, however, how many personal computer systems actually *need* more power like that? I mean, even for things like compiling huge pieces of source code doesn't take more than a few hours (not counting Level 1 install of Gentoo :p ). By the time your computer made the connection with another machine to bring in it's "help" -- you would already be done with the task.

So, although it's a great idea, it's really not feasable until we get connections that are blazingly fast (like, instantaneous).

[Hayl]

or, you can use Plan9 (http://www.fywss.com/plan9/) instead of Linux :P

[TheSpeedoBeast]

I realize that there are a lot of distributed computing programs already out there (seti, folding @ home, etc.) but I was just wondering if there was a personal give & take system out there like that. It would just be nice to do stuff like let your computer work for a few hours overnight, and then complete an entire stage1 gentoo install in an hour or less. Any more input out there?

[Hayl]

you can use distcc to use multiple machines to compile, distcc is built into portage for easy use with Gentoo. to bootstrap with it, you need to follow a few extra steps than the normal isntall process covers.

that being said, if you were to use distcc over the Internet, it would likely make thing s slower unless all the participating distcc boxes had extemeley fast connections.

[IsaacKuo]

The basic problem is that most of the computing tasks that most people do are limited more by data throughput than CPU cycles. This situation just gets more and more exacerbated with technological progress, as CPU power increases faster than data bandwidth.

Whether you're talking hard drive bandwidth, RAM bandwidth, LAN bandwidth, or Internet bandwidth--none of those are improving at the same rate of leaps and bounds as CPU speeds.

[TheSpeedoBeast]

Hm, good call, I forgot that we weren't all operating on the T3 line that my house is being served by (just kidding! geez!) Well, it was a fun idea in my head while it lasted! Good night, all!