[Zero]

Fortunately, computers are being changed soon where I work, and I have the greenlight for keeping the previous ones. I'll get between 10 and 18 computers, and turn them into a Beowulf cluster.

Korrelan, would you have any advice? about software&hardware?

[infurl]

What sort of specifications do they have (CPU, RAM, etc)?

[Zero]

I didn't look at their exact specs yet, but they are like 5 or 10 years old computers, for office work (Microsoft Office, ...etc), 64bits, 4G of RAM probably. I know that drives have been changed recently to SSD. I'll probably get 16 of them.

Maybe http://www.kerrighed.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ...? My knowledge is very limited in this domain.

Or https://www.dragonflybsd.org/

In fact, what I want is to be facing a single computer.

[MagnusWootton]

16x times faster.

I think the main gain here tho is all that extra ram,  there would be 64gig there, thats a heap,  you have to buy that in 2 sticks even today.