Re: Linux Faster Than Vista

the wharf rat" <wrat@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:ggon0r$ju8$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <9F980FD4-5E87-4BAE-9A54-3001351D416A@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Mike Brannigan <Mike.Brannigan@localhost> wrote:

And the Linux OS used on supercomputer or massively parallel platforms bares
little or no relation to that used on desktop system. All of the Linux

That's not true. For instance, Cray's CNL uses a very stock SUSE
Linux with only a few modifications to memory management and interrupt
handling.


The changes for memory management and interrupt handling are significant kernel changes and to exploit massively parallel architectures takes more the just those 2 significant changes, the CLE offers a number of changes from a standard SUSE environment.

From Crays own braochure on teh XT model

The Cray XT5 utilizes the Cray Linux EnvironmentT (CLE). CLE is a suite of
high performance software which includes a Linux-based operating system
designed to run large, complex applications and scale effi ciently to more than
240,000 processor cores. The Linux environment features a compute kernel
which can be confi gured to match different workloads. When running highly
scalable custom applications, the compute nodes can be run in a lightweight
mode, ensuring that operating system services do not interfere with application
scalability. This special design ensures that there is virtually nothing that stands
between the user's scalable application and the hardware.
When running Independent Software Vendor (ISV) applications, the compute
nodes can be confi gured by CLE to run a more compatible compute node
Linux OS, complete with the necessary services to ensure application
compatibility.

but then again Linux is just based on Minix that was based on Unix

Wrong again. Linux is a ground up rewrite and not based on
anything else, as SCO found out to its embarassment.


Nonsense - Linux is widely acknowledged to be based on the work of Tanenbaum around Minix.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX
Of course by editing my full comment you are taking it out of context the actual Linux based on Minix discussion is not germane to this discussion

occupy. The sales of supercomputer platform are extremely limited while the
desktop and server platform using Microsoft operating systems are
ubiquitous. The use of the Windows Server HPC products is aimed more at the

So IOW Linux isnt faster than Windows because they don't sell
as many of them? I think that's a non-sequitur.


no - again by editing you are missing the point. The original poster was making a biog deal about "Linux" being used on supercomputers compared to Windows. The point is that the Linux being used is a massively modified product from the desktop OS and the actual instances of this in use today and minuscule when compared to the use of the Windows server operating systems. I am not disputing that special purpose Linux implementation on supercomputer platforms can perform faster then Windows Server 2008 HPC system (well the top nine world wide do but that still leaves all the rest behind a Windows based HPC system)-the main issue is the pointlessness of holding up these special purpose Linux implementations and comparing them to Vista as per the title of the original post.


running Linux ..." - so a set of commodity servers running a Windows OS is

Lol. CNL "bears little relation to desktop linux" but HPC is
a commodity operating system.


Yes the CNL is hugely modified - Windows Server 2008 HPC is a minor set of changes to the core Windows Serve kernel, and again coming back to the original post and its title, a User of Windows Server 2008 can easily use a Windows Server 2008 HPC system whereas the use of a household Linux distro vs. CNL or one of the other supercomputer specific implementations of Linux are worlds part.

--

Mike Brannigan
"

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