[GLLUG] running R on multiple processors with LAM/MPI

[Ashton Shortridge]

Hi Qiu,

I use R all the time, but know a lot less about parallel computation. There 
are a number of existing R packages to support parallelization: rpvm, rpmi, 
and snow

I have no experience with any of these... but perhaps one of them will do what 
you want. Good luck!

Ashton

On Friday 13 June 2008, Qiu Wang wrote:
> Hello, GLLUG-ers
>
> Hope you are enjoy the nice summer!
>
> My name is Qiu Wang and I am a student at MSU. I just started using linux
> system last week and I love it. Currently, I am using a open source /GNU
> statistical package R <http://www.r-project.org/about.html> for my project.
> Is anyone using R <http://www.r-project.org/> for parallel computation on a
> linux cluster (e.g., msu's HPC)? I was told that someone once gave a talk
> on R to GLLUG 2-3 yeas ago. Does any one know if that talk touched parallel
> compuation? People at HPC (especically, Ed) are very supportive and will
> update R and install required packages (e.g.,
> Rmpi<http://www.stats.uwo.ca/faculty/yu/Rmpi/>). I really appreciated
> their help and would like to hear some user-side
> expereince from this list.
>
> Here is another issue the list might be interested with.
>
> I just got a quad dell inspiron desktop and started to use ubuntu. Oh, it
> is such a chellenge,  huge for me, but I had some fun. One thing I need to
> figure out is to run R on all 4 processors on a single machine. Right now
> it only uses one precessor (R randomly picks one of  the four CPUs to run
> the code. ). It is a waste. I found that running R on a multiprocessor
> single machine has been done on a quad-Mac
> <http://macresearch.org/statistics_supercomputing_on_a_mac_with_r_and_lam_m
>pi>. How can it be done on my Dell quad machine? I have no clue where I
> should start. Any thoughts and ideas will be appreiciated.



-- 
Ashton Shortridge
Associate Professor			ashton at msu.edu
Dept of Geography			http://www.msu.edu/~ashton
235 Geography Building		ph (517) 432-3561
Michigan State University		fx (517) 432-1671