Ubuntu Tips n Tricks

Thursday, December 2, 2010

A 50-monitor Setup Powered by a 25-node Linux Cluster

Posted: 01 Dec 2010 07:13 PM PST

I stumbled upon a website that showcases a 50-monitor setup powered by a 25 Linux cluster, which I think is awesome and could easily win any Linux workspace contest if qualified. The display is composed of fifty 21-inch touch-screen monitors that can run at a resolution of at least 12800x5120 (65,536,000 pixels). Meanwhile, the Linux cluster is made up of 25 Shuttle PCs. Here are some photos (click on the images to enlarge):

The 50-monitor setup

25-node Linux Cluster at the back of the display

Actually, the 50-monitor is a display prototype that was developed at the Gigapixel Lab at Virginia Tech. Andrew Sabri, a Virginia Tech alum involved in the project, is the one who shared the photos and noted that they would try to run some games on it. I hope he could give us some updates and more photos if they were successful in turning this setup into a gaming beast.

By the way, Andrew has also posted some images of a 24-monitor setup that successfully runs Quake 3 at 10240x3072 resolution and at 15-30 FPS. The display is powered by 12 Linux servers utilizing Distributed Multihead X (DMX) and Chromium (not the web browser). Chromium was used to distribute the OpenGL rendering from the head node to all of the servers. Here some images of the 24-monitor Linux setup: