“Not only is Linux making inroads in such varied roles as file
serving and hosting Internet services (Web, email, ftp) in the
corporate world, it is beginning to push into the computational
heavy world of supercomputing. It turns out that you can take a
bunch of relatively cheap Linux boxes (or PowerPC-based Macintosh
boxes-more on that later) and network them together to form
low-cost, high-power, number-crunching computer clusters.”
“Now, processing capabilities that just eight years ago
required a Cray Y-MP at a regional supercomputing center are
becoming available to just about any organization. And I mean any
organization-as you’ll see later in this piece, middle-school
students have been building some supercomputing clusters of their
own.”