If you feel like you're wasting your linode install something useful on it, like a TOR router or a scientific computing client for the World Community Grid.

NO! Don't suggest stuff like this, it's completely inappropriate on a shared environment

I host websites for $5 to family and friends. I almost break even ($30) on my 720 plan. I can't "play", but I don't want to, I want it up and running all the time. I play in a VM at home.

If you want a cheap-and-cheerful VPN to mess about with, you could have a look at http://www.lowendbox.com/. Keep the Linode for the serious stuff, and have a dirt-cheap box for experiments.

Wow. This thread went a little farther than I expected. I was not asking for a change, I was just wondering why Linode's business model is the way it is...

@cager Thanks for the useful link.
@glg Why is that?

Because world computing grid applications are designed to use idle disk cpu time/ram etc, when you're on a linode vps you're sharing resources with X number of other nodes so if you're running one you're using resources other nodes can be using.

Yea, but isn't that the point? Using the resources I'm paying for?

Or did you mean the WCG application try to use the whole (physical) CPU/RAM/Disk?

I dont think you quite understand the shared part of the cpu..

Think of it like this..
You have two cpu's and two users.
if User 1 is doing nothing, user 2 can use both, but if they both want to do stuff then they only get 1 cpu each.

Now if User 1 puts on something like seti@home or any of those thing they are always going to be using the CPU.. so your not sharing or allowing other people to use it. So rather then user 2 having the potential to use 2 cpu's at most, they can only use 1 now..

Does that make more sense?

_________________
ServerAdmin - www.our-lan.com
"Diplomacy is the art of saying nice doggy whilst looking for a really big stick"
"In my experiece, any attempt to make any system idiot proof will only challenge God to make a better idiot"

We actually all benefit from the statistical sharing of resources (at least in terms of CPU and I/O - memory is guaranteed and fixed) beyond what you'd get if you equally divided up the host. Essentially you can get more than you pay for, but only when others aren't using it.

On a Linode 360 (oops, 512) there are roughly 40 Linodes on a single 8-processor host. Assuming a 2.5GHz processor (fairly typical host), that means that if everyone were using as much CPU as possible, we'd all get about 0.5GHz - probably closer to 0.4GHz if you take host usage into account. Nothing wrong with that per-se - it's about all we are guaranteed, but it'd be much slower than typical behavior.

In reality, we all tend to get far more than that (and can burst to a full 4 processors) because often many other nodes are idle at any given instant in time, and Linode doesn't limit us strictly to the portion of CPU that should be allocated to each Linode if evenly divided.

I/O is shared similarly in that there is some overall bandwidth available to the disk subsystem, and at any given moment it will be shared amongst all the Linode's performing I/O. So each Linode gets higher performance since on average many of the others are not doing I/O at the exact same instant.

That's still not to say that if you need the CPU or I/O you shouldn't just use it. It will be evenly shared amongst everyone on the same host who wants it at the same time, and that's what we all bought into when we selected our plan.

But running a completely CPU or I/O bound application constantly when not actually needed for your Linode's operation isn't quite "neighborly," as it will create contention that need not exist, and lower the processing power or I/O available to others. Heavy I/O is actually even worse than CPU as it's generally a more constrained resource.

We're all sort of in the same boat and have vested interests in using what we need, but not burning resources unnecessarily.

-- David

@db3l Thanks.

I guess I can conclude with this : If you're one of my linode's neighbors, enjoy!