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MultiPC OS
A precursor to the real parallel computing of future | |
Until we have real parallel computing, I find that at work and at home, I many times use several PC's doing different tasks. I use remote-access or VNC, but get the other PC's whole screen on my PC.
Got me thinking, that it could be a good idea to make a "Multi-PC" OS, where you run programs on different
PC's, maybe you can decide which PC to run on, or even "move" running programs from one PC to the other, when the first PC is too full.
Instead of seeing the whole PC screen of the second 3rd and 4th PC, I would like to be looking at a "Windows" like environment, where one window is actually running on another PC. (Currently only the files are accessed on a network, and programs can be run on more than one CPU inside a PC, but programs are not run on different PCs).
Remember Jini?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jini
Jini was supposed to be exactly that - an ocean of OS in which devices - CPUs, memory, hard drives, keyboards, screens, etc. - all floated, each accessible from any other. [DrCurry, Apr 15 2008]
An operating system for real parallel computers
http://www.uruk.org/emu/Taos.html
From the early 1990s [coprocephalous, Apr 15 2008]
Plan 9
http://en.wikipedia...an_9_from_Bell_Labs
[BunsenHoneydew, Apr 17 2008]
Inferno
http://en.wikipedia..._(operating_system)
[BunsenHoneydew, Apr 17 2008]
[link]
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I'm sitting at a PC running under XP (hey, not my choice), running UltraEdit in one window (actually a whole 24" monitor), whilst another window on another monitor (same PC) is an X Window (Exceed) session, with a Linux desktop, with about four different terminal windows running jobs and debug sessions on several different servers and embedded devices in different parts of the company.
What's to invent? |
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As [coprocephalous] says, the X Window system allows you to run software on one machine and have its window appear on another and has done for decades. It's just Microsoft that doesn't support it. |
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Moving running programs from one PC to another has been thought of before, it's just a very difficult problem. |
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I'm not even a Linux maven, and I can remember doing exactly what your second and third paragraphs describe in 1994, with X Windows. So, pretty much baked. AFAIK Unix has been able to do this (with or without a windowing system) since the 1960s |
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And what do you mean, "until" we have real parallel computing? |
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Answers to both [copro] and [Sri] Actually I worked with IBM AIX Unix and X-Window, for years - almost forgot about it. I'm not talking about just showing the window of a running program, (which would also be nice for M$ to have). I'm talking about a real "distributed" user-oriented operating system, that knows what's running and where, for this user. |
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Moving running programs from one PC to another has been thought of? Why is it so difficult. Let me give an example: Most programs today serialize i.e. save info as files on the disk system. Many of these programs are installed on all PCs. The "OS" would know where copies of the software exist (ie. if Excel is installed on all PCs) and could save the file temporarily on the other PC (through the network) and then start excel on that file on that PC. |
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The drawback is security and fighting "viruses" i.e. vandalism, but this is HB, and that other half can be thought out. |
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Interestingly, I find that all my "stupid" ideas get buns, and any ideas I have which I seriously contemplated, usually get bones :-( |
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Hope you change your minds. |
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//Moving running programs from one PC to another has been thought of?//
I forgot to add that some of the jobs I'm running are large system builds, parts of which are automatically farmed out to other developers' PCs and run in the background, to speed up the process, so yes, even this is baked. |
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A distributed build, though, is several small applications. None of the compile processes stop halfway and move to another host. It's a bit different to move an application such as Excel. The problem is that an application may have lots of state that isn't stored to disk. It may be in the middle of a recalculation which can't be interrupted. It may have network connections - telling the process on the other end of those to reconnect to another host is difficult. |
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You *can* modify Excel to address most of these problems - the problem is that it's Excel you need to change, not the OS. The OS can give some support to applications to help them move around, but moving running processes in the general case opens a massive can of worms. |
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//A distributed build, though, is several small applications. None of the compile processes stop halfway and move to another host//
True, but there would be little point in moving the entire state of a running application across a network unless the network bandwidth was very much greater than the memory-to-processor bandwidth. |
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look up (original UNIX developer) Dennis Ritchie's "Plan9" OS... or DEC(umm Compaq, umm HP) VMS for Clustering. You don't want to move a running task, btw. |
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Indeed, if you can see this task from any display, why would you need to move it? |
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And yes, have a look at Plan 9 and its descendant Inferno. They're pretty much what you describe |
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Imagine a beowolf cluster of these! |
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I just happened across this idea, but it reminds me of a
project I want to try when I have the resources. I want to
build multiple computers in a single computer case, each
with only a minimal boot volume and a minimal OS or
hypervisor, each running a VM server, with one VM (which is
the computer you actually use) then spanned across the
multiple physical computers. Also, they'll have different
motherboards and CPUs, while storage and GPUs will be
dynamically shareable between the physical machines to
most performantly serve the VM(s) running on them. |
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With modern computing power, what sort of problems need personal powered up supercomputing? |
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Maybe, I am thinking home internal weather conditions for heaters, ventillation; bitcoin chain crunching; good societal distributed collaborations or even working the probability of ALS with a personal sample. |
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Running a whole LAN party on one computer. |
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