[geeks] fwd: IBM supercomputer dual-boots Windows and Linux

[Jonathan Katz]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 1:07 PM, Sandwich Maker <adh at an.bradford.ma.us> wrote:
> http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/061708-ibm-supercomputer-dual-boots-windows-and.html
>
> the end of the world is nigh...  unless what they mean is windows in a
> virtual machine.

This is a cluster of a lot of smaller dual-xeon-based computers,
which, for all intents and purposes, could even be booting XP,
OpenBSD, or SCO. To be a "super computer" they just need some
distributed grid daemon running on them.

I'm still at odds with calling the cluster of whatever-1U-du-jour
hooked together with Gigabit Ethernet or Myrinet a supercomputer even
if the top500 list does. To me a super computer is a big monolithic
beastie that has a single OS image on it.

-Jon (still living in the 1990s)