this was something i was just thinking of for fun. and i wanted to get more info on it...but i really couldn't find what i was looking for. i guess my first question would be...what's the difference between distributed computing and cluster computing? also, are all distributed computing programs proprietary? i'm asking, just cuz with a recent problem with my slack setup, i'm using windows lately...well, in part of my boredom, i copied my linux password file onto this machine to run it against john the ripper...just to see how long a brute force attack would take. Then i started thinking...well, it'd be faster if i could do this between two computers. and thus, my little search began. so i've looked around, and all i see is just things like distributed.net, set@home, etc.... and then on the windows website, a bit of talk about windows 2000 server clustering...but i didn't see anything of interest. this has led me to believe that most of this stuff is as is. which means, if i want to do this cracking between computers...i'd have to write my own program to do it. now that'd be cool, cuz i'd have a reason to do it and i'd have motivation...but that's also kinda above my programming level. so i was just curious if anyone knew anything about this, or could give me any place that has information on being able to do this type of thing on a home network.
btw, i know of knoppix-cluster, and am fairly interested in it...but just haven't looked at it. also, i'd prefer to use some sort of software i can use while on windows as well.//
