PiRacks Review (Raspberry Pi 3B+)

Another summer, and I’m exploring building yet another cluster. Back in 2014 when I started designing my cluster materials, there weren’t a lot of great options for cases for SBC-based microclusters. So I (and Frank Blackmon, our department tech) designed some for the parallella and the raspberry pi. They were pretty great, and I’ve used them extensively for many clusters that I’ve built in the last four years. I’ve presented some of the cluster designs at SIGCSE back in 2015 and 2016. However, one of the key limitations of our design is that it requires a 3D printer. While schools...   read more

20 Jul 2018 | raspberry pi, piracks, review, cluster

Raspberry Pi Cluster - Image Creation with MPI

I have a few more posts in mind for this summer, but I wanted to create this one while the information was still fresh in my head. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that the original Raspberry Pi cluster tutorial created by Dr. Simon Cox at the University of South Hampton no longer seems to exist. This has always been to me the de-facto go-to tutorial for creating Raspberry Pi images. I’ve used these instructions multiple times to create the images that I post on my website for those who are interested in using ready-made Raspberry Pi images for classroom...   read more

18 Jul 2018 | raspberry pi, cluster, setup, image

Raspberry Pi Cluster NFS

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted! It’s another summer and I am creating yet another cluster. One thing people may not know is back in the summer of 2014 as I anxiously waited for the release of the Parallella I was originally going to use Raspberry Pis in my parallel computing course. Of course the Parallella came out, and so I put my Pis back on the shelf and concentrated on the Parallella for the course. While my love affair with the Parallella was intense and short, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for quite a few...   read more

14 Jun 2017 | raspberry pi, cluster, setup

NFS working on the Parallella

Phew! After a bit of effort, I was able to add an external hard drive to my parallella cluster, and make it accessible to all the nodes by mounting it on a NFS. I’ve updated the parallella cluster post to include this information. Visit it here to learn how to set up NFS on your parallella cluster too!   read more

08 Apr 2016 | setup, parallella, cluster

Get Wireless on the Parallella

I haven’t posted here in a while, mainly since I’ve been very busy with other things. Recently, I downloaded the updated image from Adapteva and started experimenting with it. Needless to say, the image that Parallella is now distributing is a LOT better than the one my students and I used last year during the course. For one thing, the new version of the kernel has support for wireless. Getting connecting to wireless is a cinch using the new image. You will need: A wireless USB adapter A powered USB hub USB female to microUSB cable Connecting to Wireless While...   read more

10 Mar 2016 | setup, wireless, parallella
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