I know that finding primes and cracking encryption is not considered sexy, but that is one basic thing you can use to test your computing cluster.  After that you could move to the SETI client, folding@home, one of the other protein folding clients.   Those  folding clients may actually help people down the road. 
 
Start here:  http://www.ibiblio.org/gferg/ldp/Distributed-Computing-HOWTO/  for a list of projects.
 
 

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If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.  - Robert X. Cringely

-----Original Message-----
From:  On Behalf Of James Sissel
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 10:14 AM

This LUG supercomputer sounds interesting.  But what great social use would we dedicate it to solve (other than figuring out future Lotto winning numbers).

"Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO" <brian.kelsay@kcc.usda.gov> wrote:
It is quite possible that we could have a LUG cluster of either of those
boards. If members donated money to purchase or several people each
purchased a board and donated, with someone donating switches, wire,
metal, HDD, CF cards, UPS, like in the article I sent, we could build
something tasty.