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Experiences When Transitioning to Low-End Workstations?

Posted by Cliff on from the cutting-costs-by-cutting-the-heavy-iron dept.

gerddie asks: "Lately, we have seen a lot of companies starting to move their graphics stuff from high end to low end linux workstations (e.g. Dreamworks). Of course one reason to do such thing is cut costs, and therefore, at our institute we are going to replace or aging SGI O2s with Linux workstations. I wonder if you have experience with such a transition - especially regarding the usability of such machines for (scientific) visualization? What is working well, and where did you encounter pitfalls?"

2 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Re:my experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So let me get this right...

    you bought some fuckton of machines to run Linux without first ensuring that they -would- run Linux? A little common sense would've saved you here...

  2. Some useful comments here, but... by kiwimate · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...wouldn't it be rather a good idea to try out a couple of the proposed new workstations in a, you know, pilot programme? For the cost of a couple of boxes, a couple of licenses of the software you're interested in, and the hours to set it all up, you'll be able to set up these PCs in an area where some of your people can try running their visualizations on them and see how it works out.

    From the post:

    I wonder if you have experience with such a transition - especially regarding the usability of such machines for (scientific) visualization?

    Not to take anything away from the posters (many of whom are making comments from obvious experience -- e.g. the comments about the different architectures (big-endian vs. little-endian), but usability is, after all, in the eye of the beholder.

    One other point (and please note I am not familiar with much outside of FEA type packages) is the software you're using -- does it have a Linux platform support, or are you contemplating making an application switch as well? If so, be prepared for some resistance from the users who will be used to how things work in their big and complex package, and will not want to learn a different big and complex package.