[TriLUG] Linux vs Windows comparison criteria?

[Phillip Rhodes]

On 11/9/05, Ed Hill <ed at eh3.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2005-11-09 at 10:28 -0500, Phillip Rhodes wrote:
> >
> > Likewise, a lot of optimization work has been done to improve Linux
> > TCP / networking performance (specifically latency) by people
> > doing Beowulf cluster stuff. My understanding is that one of
> > the main reasons Linux took off in the HPC world is exactly
> > because it's open-source nature allowed the researchers to
> > optimize the kernel and TCP stack to get the performance they
> > needed.
>
> Hi Phillip,
>
> Speaking as someone very involved with building, maintaining, and using
> Beowulf and other HPC systems, the above comment is just not true for
> the vast majority of Beowulf users. Its all the *other* Linux
> advantages:

<snip>

Ed:

I should probably have pointed out that I was referring more to historical
events.
That is, (at least this is what I've read and been taught) the guys
developing
the very first beowulf systems favored linux because of the ability to
optimize
the kernel and the tcp stack. And some of the improvements made by the
Beowulf
guys have been incorporated into the mainstream network drivers, tcp stack,
etc. in
modern linux systems.

So yes, it may not be the case that most contemporary beowulf users are not
modifying the kernel and the tcp stack. But relative to this conversation,
the historical
aspect still matters ( I think) because old discussions (from mailing list
archives, etc.)
should contain information about what linux aspects were customized and
tuned for HPC.
And it seems likely that some of those factors would be relevant to the
original poster.

> And please understand that I don't mean to be argumentative. I just
> want to make it clear that the reasons Linux is wonderful for HPC are to
> a great extent the exact same reasons that make it a good choice for web
> serving, file serving, INSERT_YOUR_FAVORITE_LINUX_USE> _HERE, etc.</i>

I didn't take it as argumentative. I actually agree with you completely,
relative to what your saying about the main advantages of Linux in
contemporary applications. I was just talking about something a little
different and didn't make that clear originally.


TTYL,

Phil