PicoCluster Getting Started Guide

You've got you PicoCluster up and running, so what's next?

You can either plug in a mouse, keyboard, and monitor to use PicoCluster as a desktop computer cluster, or connect to PicoCluster over the network.

Logging on:

If you choose the desktop route, the first screen you see after booting is the login screen. The default username is picocluster with password picocluster. Should make sense, right?

If you choose to connect over the network, then the default IP address if pc0 is 10.1.10.240. The default username is picocluster with password picocluster.

This is the default node layout for a Pico 5

10.1.10.240    pc0
10.1.10.241    pc1
10.1.10.242    pc2
10.1.10.243    pc3
10.1.10.244    pc4

PicoCluster Desktop:

This is what you see when you log into the PicoCluster desktop.

Now we need to pull up the Linux Shell so we can see what else is pre-configured with the PicoCluster Image Set.

In the upper left hand corner, you'll seen the terminal icon. If you click that, then you'll open up the terminal application. Click on the enlarge window icon in the upper right hand corner of the terminal window, and you'll get this:

We have the Linux Terminal application up and running. Now we can look around.

If you logged on over the network, then you're already here.

Looking around:

picocluster@pc0:~ $ ls
Desktop    Downloads   Music                       Pictures  Public              stopAllNodes.sh  testAllNodes.sh
Documents  genKeys.sh  PicoCluster_Background.png  Pimoroni  restartAllNodes.sh  Templates        Videos

We see 3 shells scripts here to make this a little easier for us.

restartAllNodes.sh is used to restart all of the nodes in the cluster.

stopAllNodes.sh is used to stop or shut down all of the nodes in the cluster. You would normally run this script before disconnecting power to PicoCluster. Simply pulling power from PicoCluster runs a high risk of corrupting the micro SD cards on one or more of the nodes.

testAllNodes.sh does a simple df -h on each node to indicate that each node is up and running.

picocluster@pc0:~ $ sh testAllNodes.sh 
testing pc4
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  3.3G   11G  24% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M  6.3M  457M   2% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   63M   21M   43M  33% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/109
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1001
testing pc3
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  3.3G   11G  24% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M  6.3M  457M   2% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   63M   21M   43M  33% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/109
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1001
testing pc2
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  3.3G   11G  24% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M  6.3M  457M   2% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   63M   21M   43M  33% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/109
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1001
testing pc1
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  3.3G   11G  24% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M  6.3M  457M   2% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   63M   21M   43M  33% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/109
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1001
testing pc0
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root        15G  3.4G   11G  24% /
devtmpfs        459M     0  459M   0% /dev
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           463M  6.4M  457M   2% /run
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           463M     0  463M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/mmcblk0p1   63M   21M   43M  33% /boot
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1000
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/109
tmpfs            93M     0   93M   0% /run/user/1001

Pimoroni Blink! LEDs
If you noticed in the directory listing above, there is a Pimorni directory. This is the library install for the Pimoroni Blinkt! LED Python library with examples. If you purchase and LED set, then the libraries are all ready for you. This is for Raspberry PI only.

Now you're up and running:
This should be enough to get you up and running. PicoCluster is an amazing tool, with limitless possibilities, so feel free to explore it to it's fullest!

  - PicoCluster LLC