Macintosh Clustering

HiredMan writes: "Wired is running an article comparing the set-up and admin of Linux Beowulf clusters versus Mac based clusters. Slant of the article is that the Macs are easier to set-up, maintain and are more flexible. They note that the Linux "how to" manual is 230 pages while the corresponding Apple document is a 1 page PDF file. Dauger Research of former Appleseed fame is mentioned as well, of course. MacSlash is also covering the article. Let the on-topic (for once) Beowulf comments fly..."

Comments

Re:Manual length and Macs vs. PC

[fhwang]

First things first: I'm a big Mac fan -- when it comes to using Macs as client machines.

But I really do have to agree here. Short documentation doesn't necessarily mean a simpler product -- it could just mean bad documentation. In the case of Apple, unfortunately, that's very likely to be true; I've always found that their products come with unbearably flimsy documentation addressed to the most newbie user. Of course, this works most of the time, since their market is largely made-up of newbie users, and since many of their products are, in fact, much easier to use than their Windows/Linux counterpart. But when you're doing something like clustering, well, you know, I'd rather have a big manual, thanks.

Re:Cost?

[bryan1945]

Sigh. This is why WinTel continues to dominate.

Dumb businesses look at the quick and short-time costs, relegating longer-term costs to secondary status. Most semi-smart people know that longer-term (and usually recurring) costs tend to dominate over the long term. Even though there are many studies showing Macs having higher ROI, WinTel gets the vote. Just look at arguments here on Slashdot- "I can get (whatever) much more for the price Apple charges!" But it is proven that Macs need less maintainence and less configuration stuff.

With Linux, it's less clear because you can run it on even cheaper hardware, and the OS and most apps are also free. But it takes more human time to get it working right, for the most part, depending on what you want to do. Standard install, no prob. Something special, now you start running into human costs, which are way higher than equipment costs. Put it this way, it would be cheaper for a company to buy a brand new computer than to hire me for 1 day to fix it (minus data loss of course; but they should've backed up anyway!)

Meh.