[rescue] Linux help (was ZX coolness)

[Al Potter]

mcguire at neurotica.com said:
>  And the LANL people are messing with Linux for the same reason IBM,
> Sun, and all the other big shops are...because it's getting press.


No.



They are messing w/ Linux because there is clustering work there that is 
VERY mature (goes back 5+ years from personal memory) that they can leverage 
to get more MIPS/$$.

PC hardware is a win for them (now) because:

	- it's cheap up front
	- if it breaks in 2 years they don't care, cause they plan to replace
 	  it then anyway
	- did I mention that it's cheap?
	- if any single unit fails, given the clustering scheme in question,
	  they can replace it painlessly and without (significant) data loss

What they are running bears very little resemblance to "mainstream" linux 
"distros".


Dave:  as an afficianado of high-end computing, I would have though you got 
this.  They class of problem they typically work at LANL (Los Alamos 
National Labs, ie Nuke Central) is typically classed as "embarrasingly 
parallel" and lends itself very well to the type of clustering possible 
here.  It really is a big win for them, and IIRC, they built their first 
Beowulf cluster (around 80 2x proc Alphas) in 1997 or 1998.  It's definitely 
NOT a fad or marketing-oriented decision.




AL