I've just run into a short promotional article about a new book by Joseph D. Sloan, called "High Performance Linux Clusters with OSCAR, Rocks, OpenMosix, and MPI": http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/29/lnxclstrs_10.html The article is basically a list of 10 tips for beginners building a cluster. Being both an amateur and a novice, I think it's a cool article. Still, I'm wondering whether the experienced people on this list can comment on those points, or suggest other points which they perceive (more) important... Arnon