[R-SIG-Mac] Need help using Rmpi

[Cutler, Gene]

I've been trying to get some sort of parallel computing setup running across my two Macs, one with 8 cores the other with 4.  So far, I've mainly been trying to get MPI to work, but without a lot of success.  For example:

Attempt 1:
> /usr/local/openmpi/bin/mpirun --prefix /usr/local/openmpi -hostfile ~/hostfile /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.12/Resources/library/snow/RMPISNOW
# this drops me into R and I can see messages from multiple R instances starting up, so far so good...
library('Rmpi')
library('snow')
cl <- getMPIcluster()
cl	
# NULL
cl <- makeMPIcluster()
# cl <- makeMPIcluster()
# Error in makeMPIcluster() : no nodes available.
# Execution halted
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
# mpirun noticed that the job aborted, but has no info as to the process
# that caused that situation.
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note, that in fact any error such as just typing a stray character will cause R to quite with that same 'aborted' notice.

Attempt 2:
/usr/local/openmpi/bin/mpirun --prefix /usr/local/openmpi -hostfile ~/hostfile -n 1 R --slave
library(doMPI)
cl <- startMPIcluster()
# Error in system("lamnodes", TRUE, ignore.stderr = TRUE) : 
#   error in running command
# Calls: startMPIcluster -> mpi.universe.size -> grep -> system
# Execution halted
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------
# mpirun noticed that the job aborted, but has no info as to the process
# that caused that situation.
# --------------------------------------------------------------------------


I've also looked into PVM, but that doesn't seem to support multiple cpus per machine.  Using sockets with snow was also giving me problems, but I'll try that again only after completely giving up on MPI.

Does anyone have some suggestions for getting this to work?

Thanks in advance,
Gene