Linux Played a Vital Role In Discovery of Higgs Boson

An anonymous reader writes "Scientific Linux and Ubuntu had a vital role in the discovery of the new boson at CERN. Linux systems are used every day in their analysis, together with hosts of open software, such as ROOT. Linux plays a major role in the running of their networks of computers (in the grid etc.) and it is used for the intensive work in their calculations."

Comments

C++ too

[Jorl17]

Yup, C++ too. They couldn't make it out of thin air -- now everybody wants a bit of success.

Re:C++ too

[hairyfeet]

I never understood why everyone acts like this is a big deal, i mean would you be surprised if a moped gets good gas mileage or a truck has good hauling capacity?

Its really REALLY simple folks: Linux is good for embedded, for large clusters (like what CERN uses i'm sure) and for web hosting. Windows is good for desktops, laptops, and small business servers, Apple is good for consumer devices like tablets and phones.

See how easy that is? You don't try to drive in screws with a hammer and you don't run large clusters on Windows, that's just not what its good at. Linux is VERY good at that, so why would that be news? This just in, the guys at CERN use the best tool for the job, film at 11.

Re:C++ too

[Crosshair84]

Yup, the reason Linux works in those applications is because all the things that makes Linux fall down HARD on the desktop don't apply. They don't use a graphics card, Wi-Fi, or have sound. They have a dedicated team of programers whose sole job is to maintain the needed drivers and software. The set of hardware used is static and does not change.

Linux in this case is just like my pickup. No power steering, no AC, no power windows, manual transmission, no luxuries other than a radio. On the flip side, the guts are so stupid easy to work on, if you know how, that you can do all sorts of mods to it or simply keep it running for decades after more advanced cars have been scrapped. If you know how to drive it, the manual steering and gearbox gives you a level of feel and control you don't get with your average vehicle. Of course if you DON'T know how to control it you'll be in the ditch the first time you come to a turn.

Also just like Linux, if you took the average consumer and tried replacing their modern car (Windows) with my pickup (Linux), they would get a restraining order against you.

Re:C++ too

[somersault]

You don't sound like you've used Linux on the desktop anytime in the last 5 years

Re:C++ too

[hairyfeet]

Ubuntu 12 and the PCLOS and Mepis version from the same period new enough for you? The same problems exist, if you'd like a list then here you go, please note this article is the 2012 Edition and he has provided over a hundred links to exactly the same problems i have talked about at length so no need for me to rehash them.

You can stick your head in the sand and go "la la la" all you want but when people would rather risk stealing the other guy's product than taking yours for free? Well i'm sorry but that should be a giant cluebat to the side of the head that you have problems, problems that just don't exist on headless clusters.

Re:C++ too

[mcgrew]

I have to agree with the other respondant to your comment, you're really showing your ignorance. I have a Linux tower and a Win7 notebook. I used to have an identical notebook that got stolen, I'd installed kubuntu on it and it had no issues whatever. In fact, after I installed Linux it took five minutes to figure out how to disable the tap to click "feature"; it took months to find where MS had hidden it.

It's been a long, long time since I've had any issues whatever in Linux. I only go to the command promt if I need to reset the root password (I have a Linux app on CD that will reset a Windows Admin passsword). The Linux box uses the TV as a monitor, the cordless keyboard's batteries have been dead for months; I rarely use it. I can do almost everything with just a mouse, including trade files with the Windows box (the Windows box won't network with another Windows box unless there's the pro edition running on the network somewhere).

You have your analogy exactly backwards. The Windows PC needs constant maintenance. When I bought a bluetooth dongle I had to install software and reboot twice. I plugged it into the Linux box and it just worked. At least once a month I have to download Windows patches, install them (and usually have to enter the admin password to do so), and reboot, often several times. On the Linux box, when there's a patch available a window pops up, I click once and go on doing what it was I was doing.

On the rare occasion I shut the Linux box off, when it reboots it comes back exactly like it was. I actually avoid updating the Windows box because I don't want to reopen all the files and apps and browser tabs; I almost always let it hibernate.

If I want new software on the Windows box I have to run an install program, click through quite a few boxes, and reboot. With Linux I fetch it from the repository and go on working.

If I install hardware in a Windows box I have to install drivers. Linux finds the drivers for me and installs them automatically, in the background.

Seriously, Windows is the twenty year old rusted pickup truck that has no AC or power anything and a manual shift and clutch. Linux is a Porche that's unfortunately painted piss yellow and shit brown (Windows is prettier).

Windows has only two advantages for a home computer user: better games, and NetFlix. Linux wins in every other category. Its drawback for the average joe is that he can't buy a PC with it preinstalled; normal people don't install OSes.

And I have in fact replaced Windows with Linux on folks' computers when the registry was so trashed it barely ran, and in every case they were impressed with its features and astounded that they'd never heard of it before. I'd traded their pretty but primitive pickup truck with an Escalade painted an ugly color.

Re:C++ too

[KingBenny]

let's not forget Von Neumann for coming down from space (i think he was born on the same planet as Einstein) and delivering the crucial architecture then while we're at it

The Only Newsworthy Item

[eldavojohn]

The only thing that would be newsworthy is if you managed to do something highly technical without having Linux play a vital role. For everyone who thinks that a complete absence of Linux is the norm: Did you use the internet?

After tinkering with Debian on my Raspberry Pis, it's pretty clear that kids are going to learn how pervasive Linux can be. As long as other operating systems are closed source or require money to run, Linux will be more than abundant. I worked at a Fortune 500 company and aside from some hilariously painful Sharepoint servers, everything was Linux. If OSX is Uranium on the periodic table, Linux is Hydrogen. If Windows is as abundant and costly as diamonds, Linux is as abundant and costly as carbon. It may be no-frills, it might be forever doomed to be passed over by gamers and musicians ... but it's the de facto standard where I work when you need serious shit done -- large or small.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats nice, hate to break it to you but Linux is still a huge minority even in the science/research realm.

And its kinda funny your hatred with OS X when OS X is Unix which is all Linux is pretending to be.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Nadaka]

OSX is BSD.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, somebody's more than a little butthurt. :-)

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Jorl17]

Shh, you'll insult him.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And what's the larger point? That a group of technical geniuses used it...therefore it is awesome for the average person? That they found it useful of the power that makes an OS seem broken and difficult to use for the average joe?

I'm sure they relied even more heavily on professional statistical analysis tools, most of which is probably (even more likely) available on WIndows and even Apple, and even more heavily still on custom software, which can go anywhere. And yes, that includes most I/O piping. Unless Windows does away with their command prompt.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[G3ckoG33k]

"OS X is Unix which is all Linux is pretending to be"

Huh? That may have been true a decade ago.

Have a look at http://i.top500.org/overtime and you'll see that Linux overtook and topped Unix between 2002 and 2005.

OSX today? Not of any significant relevance for the last few years.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML tags aren't hard, dude. Furthermore, in your little rant you are missing the point

There are interesting facets to it, I think. What would they be using if Linux didn't exist? How much longer would it have taken if they'd had to use BSD? Or Windows?

How many of those millions of man-hours contributed to this discovery? How many other major breakthroughs have they enabled? How much amazing potential is locked up in proprietary software, utterly useless?

A major discovery like this is a perfect chance to blow the horn for publicly-funded research, and open source software is a huge part of that.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

and BSD is Unix. Your point? Or are you one of those idiots who still insists BSD isnt Unix? Because if you are you should shut up and stop posting now.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every physics professor in every university I've attended or visited uses either a Mac or Linux. I don't know what science you're talking about?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[religious freak]

(r)Amen!

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Whole article is bunk, they could have done it with other operating systems just different cost, Linux didn't have anything special that they couldn't get elsewhere.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[ThorGod]

Almost every physics professor in every university I've attended or visited uses either a Mac or Linux. I don't know what science you're talking about?

He's probably talking about business or other math-light fields.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[DrJimbo]

OSX is BSD.

Great news! Kudos to Apple for stepping up to the plate and releasing OSX under an open source license. Maybe this will encourage Microsoft to release Windows under the GPL-3.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[oakgrove]

The LHC is probably the most important scientific installation on the face of the earth right now with international backing. Do you really think that they would blink at the price tag of Windows anything else if they wanted to use it? They use Linux because for their purposes it is better. Does anybody on this site engage brain before keyboard anymore?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[f3rret]

If OSX is Uranium on the periodic table, .

So if I install OS X enough times on my computer it'll achieve super-criticality? Does it also mean that OS X is technically illegal under the NPT?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[similar_name]

Of the top 500 supercomputers (often used for science and research) Linux does okay.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure they relied even more heavily on professional statistical analysis tools,

And you'd be wrong.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[ZeroSumHappiness]

That would make it illegal under its own TOS...

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me introduce you to Darwin...

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Almost every physics professor in every university I've attended or visited uses either a Mac or Linux. I don't know what science you're talking about?

He's probably talking about business or other math-light fields.

Hmmm. Doesn't scientific method build on mathematics? And I mean mathematics, not voodoo "mathematics" as it is in economics (which is just theology of Mammon, simply wrong most of the time or just bad otherwise).

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the kind of article that will make the linux users load up on kleenex and lotion now.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Forty Two Tenfold]

If OSX is Uranium on the periodic table, .

So if I install OS X enough times on my computer it'll achieve super-criticality?

No, it's just wrong isotope. But it still can give cancer!

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Aeros]

And you know this because?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[MightyMartian]

And its kinda funny your hatred with OS X when OS X is Unix which is all Linux is pretending to be.

Is that even a useful distinction any more? Do you think anyone would use OS X for serious number crunching?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Nexion]

That's why 83.8% of the top 500 supercomputers all run OSX!!!

http://i.top500.org/stats/list/37/os

Oh wait... I must be a bit colorblind... that's actually Linux. Hmmm... is OSX even on this thing?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

OMGWTFBBQ!!! PONIES!!!!

/my apologies to used memes

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point? Are you one of those idiots that thinks Linux is Unix? Because if you are you should shut up and stop posting now.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[julian67]

Does anybody on this site engage brain before keyboard anymore?

No. The ubiquity of the touchscreen and roaming connectivity means that neither brain nor keyboard is required, or very likely to be used, in the typical slashdot reply. Unfortunately the same can be said for many of the vacuous stories and their tedious click-seeking headlines.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[crypticedge]

No, but it melts the users brains the same way as uranium does if you keep it too close to your head.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[retchdog]

what the hell are you talking about?

yeah, there are a few institutions (like mine) which suck the microsoft tit and "officially" prefer windows.

of course, the people who are really getting shit done (applied) tend to use linux or mac os x; and the clusters use linux almost exclusively. even most of the windows people have a secondary redhat or ubuntu box when they need it.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Nexion]

Cost is everything as science is done on a budget. More processing for your buck equates to more science accomplished.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I'm part of the CMS experiment and our whole analysis stack is based on ROOT, and entirely built at CERN.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[fatphil]

I'm curious - at the Higgs announcement at CERN - were they showing overhead slides? I'm sure you can see where I'm heading - were they MS Powerpoint slides?

Is this the question one simply shouldn't ask?!?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[h4rr4r]

Looks great, where do I find cocoa and all that graphical jazz?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

The more important question is: What insane person used Windows on their supercomputer?
I honestly wasn't aware that Windows could even use enough CPUs for it to count as a supercomputer...

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[h4rr4r]

Why? Do you think powerpoint was critical in getting actual work done?

If so I have a bridge to sell you.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[SplashMyBandit]

Windows is also as 'broken' as Linux or Apple to the Average Joe. *Most* people are too frightened to install software themselves and get their friends and family to do it - even on Windows. Now some people (especially the young) do take up the challenge and install stuff by themselves - and it turns out that apt-get/synaptic etc are actually *easier* to use than finding and installing the right Installshield/NSS program (or even Apple dmg) since in the latter you have to read all sort of crap and select all sorts of options to get it installed. On Linux the software is installed easily with a common configuration, only customizing the configuration requires any thought.

Linux works just as well as Windows or Apple provided you get a technical minded person to maintain it for you. If it wasn't for the techie Slashdotters looking after Windows machines then most people could not maintain access to a working computer. Therefore your argument that Linux is broken is really incorrect - what you ought to be arguing about is the degree of difficulty of (IYHO) 'broken' Linux vs 'broken' Windows vs 'broken' Mac.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it also mean that OS X is technically illegal under the NPT?

I think you have to enrich it at least 20%

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to be annoying, but quite curious why someone that correctly places most of its capital letters... missed the Internet one. :-)

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only thing that would be newsworthy is if you managed to do something highly technical without having Linux play a vital role. "

If you have a multi-mile-long apparatus that costs a gazillion you have to save a few bucks on the OS.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[fatphil]

Quite what did I write that made you think that I might possibly think that powerpoint was critical for getting any actual work done?

Your ability to leap to absurd conclusions is worrying.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC is probably the most important scientific installation on the face of the earth right now with international backing. Do you really think that they would blink at the price tag of Windows anything else if they wanted to use it?

The LHC experienced a two year delay from 2005 to 2007 due to budget issues, and experienced further unanticipated delays along the way from vacuum leaks and faulty electrical connections. The project most certainly wasn't immune to the same budgetary considerations any project faces.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? OSX already IS released under a open source license, it's called Darwin. It's CLI only but then you don't actually think people use Linux for the GUI right?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Tough Love]

OS X is Unix which is all Linux is pretending to be.

Linux Is Not UniX

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Stax]

No, but really. OSX is Unix.

http://images.apple.com/media/us/osx/2012/docs/OSX_for_UNIX_Users_TB_July2011.pdf

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

NT is a perfectly nice kernel, if there was no Linux I'd probably be content to use NT and it's just very good fortune for me that there's a free software kernel just as nice.

Of course /Windows/ is garbage, but the supercomputer isn't running very much of Windows, that's just a pretty interface layer nobody cares about.

If there's something awesome that a general purpose OS kernel could do, chances are one of NT and Linux are doing it today, and the other one will have it by next year (which is which varies). Nobody else comes anywhere close.

The reason so few people run NT (and thus Windows) on supercomputers is just that you can't self-support very well because Microsoft are cagey about the secret sauce (source). Big supercomputing projects tend to have in-house people rather than buy support from an OS vendor which (duh) does not own any supercomputers and thus doesn't have any useful experience to apply to your problems. Arranging to get access to NT source for your supercomputer project is a complete pain in the backside and what you get isn't everything you could really use. Whereas obviously Linux is available straight out of a git tree from the real head of the project, and there's a mailling list where you can talk with the people who wrote all the important bits.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[budgenator]

And what's the larger point? That a group of technical geniuses used it...therefore it is awesome for the average person? That they found it useful of the power that makes an OS seem broken and difficult to use for the average joe?

Your Average Joe thinks every OS is broken and difficult to use, your Average Joe's cognitive style really isn't suited to using a computer.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Tough Love]

were they MS Powerpoint slides

Chances are they were prepared on a Mac. One of the presentations apparently used Comic Sans, so I suppose you could say that Microsoft did make it to the party for a bit of comic relief.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Pseudonym]

Thats nice, hate to break it to you but Linux is still a huge minority even in the science/research realm.

That's because most scientists' computing demands can be satisfied by a moderately-sized spreadsheet. When it can't, a small amount of Matlab or R will do the trick.

Linux has the edge where it counts: high-performance computing. If you have a metric crapload of data to crunch, and it's not the sort of problem that fits neatly onto special-purpose architectures (e.g. BlueGene), Linux is it.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Pseudonym]

Same with bioinformatics, FWIW. Everyone at the conferences either has a Macbook, an iPad or a netbook running Ubuntu.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they would. They rather have funding for science go towards instruments, postdocs, grad. students etc and not Windows licenses.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[oakgrove]

and not Windows licenses

The OS is a tool just like anything else. If Windows would have been more suited to the job they would have used it. They didn't.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[oakgrove]

The LHC experienced a two year delay from 2005 to 2007 due to budget issues

Yeah, and those budgetary issues had a lot more zeroes behind them than some Windows licenses would have. The price of proprietary OSs on every computer at CERN would be a rounding error compared to the overall cost of the project.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[the gnat]

The only thing that would be newsworthy is if you managed to do something highly technical without having Linux play a vital role.

Agreed - I can't think of any large scientific facility that isn't bristling with Linux machines. Visit any particle accelerator and most of the workstations will be running Linux, not Windows. And nearly all of the backend servers will be running Linux as well. The Windows machines will mostly just be individual scientists' laptops (mixed in with a lot of Macs, at least in the US), and controllers for proprietary hardware that can't be run from Linux.

I think this is mostly historical legacy, as others have noted; 15 years ago these would have been entirely proprietary Unix systems, where typical prices were $50,000 for the workstation and $3000 just for the compilers. Switching to Linux was the obvious thing to do.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[budgenator]

The more important question is: What insane person used Windows on their supercomputer?
I honestly wasn't aware that Windows could even use enough CPUs for it to count as a supercomputer...

Microsoft pretty much has to keep at least one machine in the top 500, even if they have to buy it themselves.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope I'm one of those people who know unix is better than Linux and will always be.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[jc42]

What would they be using if Linux didn't exist? How much longer would it have taken if they'd had to use BSD? Or Windows?

Good points. One of my favorite ways of explaining it to non-geeks is to mention a job I had in the early 1990s, at a company that was building software that ran on either Sun or Apollo workstations, depending on the group. There were ongoing discussions between these two factions, mostly based on the fact that the Suns cost roughly twice what the Apollos did, for similar hardware capabilities. But the teams using Suns generally won out, for a simple reason: When the Apollo users had serious bugs that led down to the OS and "system" libraries, queries to Apollo CS typically got the reply "We can't tell you; it's proprietary."

OTOH, when the Sun users had bugs that led down into the OS, they'd ask about it on various public forums (mailing lists and newsgroups), and most of the time they'd get an answer from someone inside Sun. Quite often the Sun engineer would simply post the code that dealt with the question, and say "This is exactly how it works".

The result was that the teams using the expensive Sun got their stuff to market quickly, while the Apollo users were still beating their heads against the wall of "proprietary". Stuff that works sells a lot better that stuff that can't be made to work.

Apollo has long since disappeared from view. With time, Sun slowly went the proprietary route, and I haven't used it for over a decade. It wasn't much of a surprise when they got gobbled up by one of the most rapacious corporations in the industry. But this didn't matter, because those of us interested in rapid software development had long since migrated over to Linux or *BSD, for exactly the same reason that we'd used Sun workstations a decade or so earlier. Nowadays, google can typically find you the code that implements whatever error messages you're getting on those systems. With all of google's problems, this is orders of magnitude faster than solving problems on proprietary systems. And stuff that works still sells better than stuff that can't be made to work.

It's no surprise that "aware" non-geeks like Apple's stuff. It's shiny. And some geeks are still using it, though we're drifting away as Apple moves back into its walled garden. But if you're part of the tech crowd, which pretty much included all real scientists and engineers, it make a lot of sense to use the most open computer systems you can get your hands on. These days, the poster child for openness is linux, so you are probably using that.

Still, there are systems like OpenBSD and FreeBSD (and iTron ;-) that are also quite open. Probably not soon, but some day, it's quite possible that some gang of professional managers and legal types will manage to capture Linux and take it proprietary. We should be looking over our shoulders for such corporate IP raiders, and be prepared for abandoning ship for whatever has managed to remain open. Or, more likely, the linux gang may bog down in the complexity of their attempts to steal "the desktop" from MS, and make their stuff more and more difficult to use. When this happens, we should know what our alternatives are, if we want computer systems that are easily usable in technical arenas.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that OSX would last the few centuries required to do serious harm to your brain that with uranium ore.

By the 100th year old age would be more harmful than the uranium!

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC is probably the most important scientific installation on the face of the earth right now with international backing.

There are a few cancer/medical research centers that may disagree with you.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

And most of those Macbooks have been bought off grant money. Very few people in academia spend money from their own pocket to by Macbook. Because the screen size you need to use the machine for long hours costs a lot. The more affordable Macbook (13") tends to tax the eyes a lot.

Not sure why is Thinkpad T 15" any less useful to these academicians than a Macbook is. Most of them don't write code (which might require local GNU/Unix tool-chain, not that cygwin doesn't provide that on Windows). They read papers, access websites to use web-based tools, use Java based tools and write papers and documents. Why is Macbook any more effective than Thinkpad T? Except that Macbook comes with a brand value and looks more beautiful.

Thinkpad, with its upgradability and non-glossy screen is better for sustained work.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

[AC, as of some mod points spent]

ROOT, Data Analysis Framework

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Unix is a trademark. So while BSD Unix is Unix, all BSD is not necessarily. They can be the same like Q-tips and cotton swabs are but only Unilever makes Q-tips.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[rmstar]

I think this is mostly historical legacy, as others have noted; 15 years ago these would have been entirely proprietary Unix systems, where typical prices were $50,000 for the workstation and $3000 just for the compilers. Switching to Linux was the obvious thing to do.

Hm - no. Not just legacy. The fact is that windows sucks. You still can't have multiple desktops for it. And all the other eye candy matters shit when you want to do some serious number crunching. Etc. And there is far too little open source for it.

Even worse yet, windows sucks epically as a platform for running emacs.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[oakgrove]

touché

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[occasional_dabbler]

And they would be wrong

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[techno-vampire]

As long as other operating systems are closed source or require money to run, Linux will be more than abundant.

I doubt that most kids care much about open source/closed source unless they're into programming. Free, OTOH, is a major advantage because most of them don't have much (if any) money, and once they go the Linux route, they don't have to keep asking their parents to pay for upgrades. I can't speak for anybody else, but personally, when I'm explaining why I use Linux the word "free" gets used an awful lot.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[aergern]

Linux never "pretended to be" because it is .. just as much as BSD. What it DID not do was get a license bought and fees paid in order to call itself UNIX. Solaris did. HP-UX did. OSX did. It's a hold over from NeXTStep having been UNIX but please .. do not talk about things you do not understand.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the little fact that OS X sells an order of magnitude (or two or three) more than linsux. Linsux is for hobbyists and people who are too cheap to pay for high quality. Contrast this to OS X, professional software for professional minds.

Think different.
Think better.
Think APPLE!

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[rubycodez]

GNU/Linux is not a Unix(tm), but those of us older than Unix and Unix(tm) know it is a unix

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[rubycodez]

No, several internationally funded telescopes are. They provide information on the cosmos beyond the Standard Model and are giving us new physics. Accelerating expansion of the universe, dark matter, variations in the CMB from the dawn of space-time....we can't build accelerators big enough to probe that scale of physics.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be no-frills, it might be forever doomed to be passed over by gamers and musicians ... but it's the de facto standard where I work when you need serious shit done -- large or small.

Need "serious shit done"? I'm a musician and take my work seriously. But I guess my needs aren't serious enough for Linux.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse yet, windows sucks epically as a platform for running emacs.

I'm puzzled -- isn't windows run from emacs?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. I'm surprised we haven't seen lots of fanboys also ranting that Windows tried to prevent the Higgs discovery. (Minesweeper is VERY entertaining.)

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC is probably the most important scientific installation on the face of the earth right now with international backing. Do you really think that they would blink at the price tag of Windows anything else if they wanted to use it?

Yes. They have a finite budget, and they would rather spend it on design and manufacturing of detectors and control systems than OS licences. Take a look at the volume of data they have. OS licence costs add up when you have enough machines to process that amount of data in a reasonable amount of time.

Does anybody on this site engage brain before keyboard anymore?

I know one commenter who clearly doesn't :)

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Look closer at your graph. It's prevalence is now declining.

Netcraft confirms it.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Dynetrekk]

I've spent a year at CERN and, indeed, they do use windows. For secretaries and administration, mostly. Man, I hate their whole windows admin regime (you've sometimes got to dual boot into Windows to fill out a form). Linux is being used for all sorts of technical purposes - control centre, simulation servers and desktops, low-level control stuff, etc. Windows is only used for powerpoint and "typewriter" kind of work, as I expect is the case elsewhere.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't count out the musicians...

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/16/html/Musicians_Guide/index.html

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[fatphil]

Comic Sans? I'm almost lost for words. Thanks for that!

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[quenda]

OS X is Unix which is all Linux is pretending to be.

Linux Is Not UniX

Linux is Linus's Unix. GNU is Not Unix.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Tough Love]

Linux Is Not UniX

Whoever modded that down has issues.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

Yeah, and those budgetary issues had a lot more zeroes behind them than some Windows licenses would have. The price of proprietary OSs on every computer at CERN would be a rounding error compared to the overall cost of the project.

Besides the fact that Microsoft would be more than willing to offer deep discounts for what would effectively be a high-profile advertising project. Imagine the bragging rights it would buy MS in the enterprise if Windows was widely deployed in the front lines of such an important scientific project. (I have no doubt that Windows runs on some CERN computers.)

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Yikes! A normal political pith gets me a 0.

No touchey da Linux! >:-(

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that would be newsworthy is if you managed to do something highly technical without having Linux play a vital role.

Does that mean they are using Linux on the F-35 program?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Anonymous Coward]

Musician here, I use ONLY linux for my productions!

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[Owlyn]

Ooooh fun. Another LInux vs UNIX vs OSX vs Windows vs Darwin vs BSD vs some other *nix war. Does anyone remember which side I am on?

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[M1FCJ]

The really funny bit is the rest of the commercial Linux distributions in that list (RHEL, Suse) and non-commercial clones and others (CentOS, CNL) are not counted as Linux. The only non-Linux OS in that list which has a % share over 1 is AIX. Windows even doesn't make it, 0.8% with a whopping 4 installations.

Re:The Only Newsworthy Item

[M1FCJ]

I think you'll find Linus's name has more in Linux name than you think there is. That backronym is not correct.

The Little Platform That Could

[Anonymous Coward]

See, I knew linux would finally be of some use to somebody, somewhere.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[jedidiah]

Once you get outside of editing msword documents, Linux is pretty much useful to everyone, everywhere. If you think that Linux isn't useful, you're wearing your consumer blinders a little too tight.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[Anonymous Coward]

If Linux is so great, then why aren't they selling it for super cheap to poor people, like Microsoft is with Windows? Do they think we're made of money or something?

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[BanHammor]

I'd mod you funny if I could.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[Eravnrekaree]

Eh? Linux edits MS Word documents well with Libreoffice. The really weak areas are games, and a huge number of specialized apps from web and graphics development. Most Linux tools really cannot match the Adobe stuff.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[DeeEff]

I would argue the opposite, actually. Most Adobe stuff just simply cannot keep up with Linux.

Why would they even try when the end product comes out like garbage anyways? I'm looking at you Flash.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[Anonymous Coward]

The killer here is the guy on top who says, we need to keep windows because that is all Microsoft Publisher will work with. And, of course, the only reason we use publisher is because "the only alternative [indesign] costs hundreds of dollars a person."

So I think it is too easy to say there is really any ONE reason people don't switch.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[Anonymous Coward]

How? How do you do it? I really want to know. How is it possible to bend over and shove your head up your own ass? FUCK YOU, Jedidiah, you Jewish faggot. What you think is useful to you can't be broadly applied to everyone else. Linux users are like retarded niggers. They think different, but can't understand that everyone else doesn't think like them. Take your FOSS horse shit and cram it up your ass. I'm worried your head might get bored in there.

Re:The Little Platform That Could

[Anonymous Coward]

It really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Generally speaking, I agree that Linux is incredibly useful. I don't think I need to explain why here ;)

But it's not really accurate to say that it's great for 'everything except word documents'. I would argue that it's a lot more useful for editing word documents than it is, to give one example of a "serious" endeavor, for audio work. The state of pro audio software on Linux is just plain sad, it's really not suitable for anything beyond hobby projects.

Microsoft did more

[ZeroSumHappiness]

So what if Linux played a role in their server operations. Microsoft was used in all the ways that made the money donated to the project. So once again Linux users talk about "free" when they really mean "provided for by someone else."

Re:Microsoft did more

[Jorl17]

When I talk about Free I talk about being able to dive in the kernel to find backdoors. BANG.

Re:Microsoft did more

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What are you talking about? "Donated to the project"? There were no donations, these were research grants and funds from various national governments.

Re:Microsoft did more

[geekoid]

A Kernel that was provided by someone else.

Re:Microsoft did more

[ZeroSumHappiness]

What is a research grant but a donation from the people that actually make money and provide a real service to the world?

Re:Microsoft did more

[Garridan]

Naw, I think Microsoft's biggest contribution to all this was the Comic Sans font.

Re:Microsoft did more

[K. S. Kyosuke]

By the same line of reasoning, you could argue that COBOL tax software run by IRS and equivalent bodies in European countries was a key component in finding the Higgs boson. And the baker on the street corner was a key component as well because he made the scientists happier in the morning and therefore more productive. You have to draw the line somewhere as to what is a part of the project and what isn't.

Re:Microsoft did more

[ThorGod]

So what if Linux played a role in their server operations. Microsoft was used in all the ways that made the money donated to the project. So once again Linux users talk about "free" when they really mean "provided for by someone else."

Overly broad connection is bizarre. You see, in the academic world professors tend to use the best tool available or make a better tool. The LHC is a good example of that, since it simply didn't exist until a group of academics turned their efforts to creating it. I guarantee LHC researchers have refined and contributed back to many OSS projects. If anything, Linux and BSD thrive off of contributions made by researchers (academic and otherwise). It would be more noteworthy if Linux played a minimal role at a scientific project like the LHC.

Re:Microsoft did more

[Trilkin]

MISTER POTATO HEAD. Backdoors are not secrets!

Re:Microsoft did more

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Come on, everyone knows that taxes destroy wealth. They don't create it. Try to troll harder next time.

Re:Microsoft did more

[Forty Two Tenfold]

You're confusing taxes with greed.

Re:Microsoft did more

[CanHasDIY]

Come on, everyone knows that taxes destroy wealth. They don't create it. Try to troll harder next time.

Yea, why do you think America was so poor during the 1950's, when the top tax rate was 90%?

Re:Microsoft did more

[curious.corn]

Naw, I think Microsoft's biggest contribution to all this was the Comic Sans font.

LOL +1

Here's your awesomeness car sir... what a perfect synthesis.

Re:Microsoft did more

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Please, everyone knows that academics is 99% politics and professors are, in general, technically clueless. Sure, they're really smart with numbers and all but give them a bare machine and tell them they're on their own and they'd be lost. It's their students that are growing up in this freeloading floss (funny how floss is only good for finding bits of discarded food) culture that is setting them up with Linux, and once they're on Linux they're locked in to those "OSS" (also known as inferior) tools since most professional packages don't even run on Linux. Wow, I haven't read such blatant trolling in a long time. How did anyone get tricked into thinking this was insightful?

Re:Microsoft did more

[h4rr4r]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Guys, for the good of the internet don't respond to these kinds of posts.

Re:Microsoft did more

[Tough Love]

Yes, I gave it to him and he knows where I live.

Re:Microsoft did more

[ZeroSumHappiness]

Dingdingding! I promise I won't troll next time, guys. Thanks for playing!

Re:Microsoft did more

[Anonymous Coward]

You see, in the academic world professors tend to use the best tool available or make a better tool.

No they don't. They use what they know and won't learn anything else. I had to beat my thesis advisor over the head with a stick every time he asked for data in a text file.

Re:Microsoft did more

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, our economy benefited greatly from the devastation of Europe during WWII. High taxes are not so much of a problem when you are the world leader in manufacturing.

That said, I am of the opinion that we've gone too far. While Reagan's tax cuts were arguably a boon to the economy, we have seen no benefits from the cuts that followed in the 90s and later.

Re:Microsoft did more

[santax]

Shameless plug for a friend who created this shirt: http://www.threadless.com/submission/436738/You_re_just_not_my_type/from,cococosy

Re:Microsoft did more

[Anonymous Coward]

From this comment I assume you've never worked in academia; in my experience the most commonly used tool is that which works just well enough to get the data ready for the next paper, despite the quality of that tool. I've seen plenty of 1000+ line csh scripts calling IDL routines to get stuff processed, and there's not much hope of getting it replaced since that big task doesn't directly contribute towards the next paper or grant.

Re:Microsoft did more

[ThorGod]

I've seen plenty of 1000+ line csh scripts calling IDL routines to get stuff processed, and there's not much hope of getting it replaced since that big task doesn't directly contribute towards the next paper or grant.

Well, academics are people and suffer from the relevant frailties. Like making statements below the belt and sticking to tools that were great at one point in time.

Though, I don't have any experience with IDL. Maybe it's a fine tool.

Obligatory...

[Zemran]

Wow, Imagine what they would discover with a Bewoulf Cluster then...

Re:Obligatory...

[G3ckoG33k]

Your low number gave you away... ;)

Re:Obligatory...

[Tough Love]

A Beowulf cluster of LHC rings would likely be able to vaporize an incoming asteroid.

Re:Obligatory...

[rubycodez]

No need for a cluster, a single one can do a whole planet at the right time, as the Mayans knew

And if Linux wasn't there...

[jellomizer]

They probably would had still found it.

I would also like thank Expo Dry Erase markets, without them we wouldn't get our first draft of the calculations.

The Vital Role is technology that without it, it wouldn't happen. Not something without it, you would have a perfectly usable substitute.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

There is no perfect usable substitute for Linux.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha. Cry more, you little bitch.

you would have a perfectly usable substitute.

There is no perfect drop in replacement for Linux you fucking moron. BSD doesn't support the hardware that Linux does and Windows isn't as performant. Oh, here's some cheese for your whine.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[jedidiah]

Of course Windows would have extra software costs. It MIGHT be as usable but it would certainly be considerably more expensive. That's not even accounting for needing more hardware to do the same amount of work.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[GameboyRMH]

It would have eaten up all the funds for building the actual LHC though...

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's right... It's either BSD, Linux or Windows... There ain't nothing else out there...
 
Oh, wait...

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC is the premier particle accelerator in the world. It is extremely unlikely that if they actually wanted to use Windows that budgetary constraints would stop them. They use Linux because for their purposes it is just better. Price is irrelevant.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[maxwell demon]

No. The Hurd is also free. And without Linux, it probably would have seen far more development by now. Or maybe they'd run a BSD.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[JonJ]

I pray to god you're not actually referring to OS X...

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO UNIX...(ducks).

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[fatphil]

Including the null substitution.

(Don't get me wrong, I've been a part-time linux-ite since 1993, and have been exclusively linux (OK, apart from one NetBSD box) for the last 12 years. However, it's far from perfect even in my nerdy little corner of the world.)

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[marcosdumay]

If Linux wasn't there, they'd have to write it (using another name, of course).

Or do you think Linux has any ready substitude for high throughtput computing?

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD doesn't support the hardware that Linux does

More an issue for embedded devices. If you're talking about massive x86 clusters, BSD is just fine. Biggest issue could be GPU CUDA support, I'm not sure where BSD stands there.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, TI-84 Plus family Operating System. They use it in scientific calculators. It crunches numbers. It must be awesome!

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[Brannoncyll]

They probably would had still found it.

I would also like thank Expo Dry Erase markets, without them we wouldn't get our first draft of the calculations.

The Vital Role is technology that without it, it wouldn't happen. Not something without it, you would have a perfectly usable substitute.

Ugh, no thanks. At my institution we use good ole blackboards. Not only do they look nicer, you never have to worry about searching through piles of pens to find one that actually works, or the indelible marks left by some idiot who didn't notice his pen was a permanent marker.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[tqk]

There is no perfect usable substitute for Linux.

Depending on hardware, sure there is. The *BSDs may even be better in a lot of ways. pf is a lot better than iptables, for instance.

Re:And if Linux wasn't there...

[rubycodez]

pf is great stuff but has bottleneck, just single threaded

Linux is indeed used in many scientific fields

[Kensai7]

Linux is indeed used in many scientific fields. Speed? Customization? Open source tools? Probably all the above. If anyone is working on Neuroscience, for example, I bet he/she already knows NeuroDebian or will be interested to use it.

Yes yes....

[Anonymous Coward]

And by the way, ROOT was developed by CERN, so what's exactly the point there?
I'm missing the news part somewhere...

Smells like.... a shameless plug.

Kitchen staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, C++ too. They couldn't make it out of thin air -- now everybody wants a bit of success.

Let's not forget THE most important members of the team: the folks who made the coffee! NOTHING helps more with analysis than fresh pots and pots of coffee!

C++ and Linux - pffft! Gimme enough coffee and all I need is an abacus, some graph paper and colored pencils!

Re:Kitchen staff

[datavirtue]

If I drink a bunch of coffee I get real tired.

Re:Kitchen staff

[GameboyRMH]

Keep going, once you hit 100 cups of coffee you achieve transcendence.

Re:Kitchen staff

[Anonymous Coward]

"Transcendence"? So that's how heart attack is called nowadays?

Re:Kitchen staff

[GameboyRMH]

It looks like a heart attack on an EKG but you'll probably be fine once you go back to normal-time. Handy for saving your friends from a fire.

Re:Kitchen staff

[ashish3]

I believe '100 cups of coffee' was a FUTURAMA reference!

Re:Kitchen staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are my "mod up" points when I need 'em?

Re:Kitchen staff

[fatphil]

You misspelt either transfusion or transplant, I can't work out which.

Re:Kitchen staff

[CosaNostra Pizza Inc]

YES! Can't remember the name of the episode but I believe its the one where they all get tax refunds.

Re:Kitchen staff

[jc42]

Where are my "mod up" points when I need 'em?

Heh; I got 'em!

(... Oh, wait ...;-)

Re:Kitchen staff

[Moheeheeko]

"300 big boys" is the episode.

"Of course I was up all night Not from the caffiene I couldnt stop thinking about coffee! zzzzzzzzzzz COFFEE TIME!"

Re:Kitchen staff

[UnknowingFool]

Obligatory clip:

Re:Kitchen staff

[Mike Buddha]

When I drink that much coffee I can understand Spanish.

Re:Kitchen staff

[Anonymous Coward]

And there I was sitting there thinking it was a reference to Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri..

Re:Kitchen staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh there's a much more powerful and cheaper way. You have to do this in quick succession too.

#1 Wake up really early.
#2 Get really high on weed.

After the first cup of coffee you'll start to feel the effects because the walls will start to bend a little.
Second cup you'll actually be able to see through the walls and into the other side.
After the third cup you can actually pass through the walls into the other side.

The days pretty downhill after that however.

Re:Kitchen staff

[rtb61]

To be fair whilst coffee adds to the cost of these projects, using Linux means saving tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars of licence fees. Often those extra costs can mean the difference between success and failure, simply by running out of cash before success is achieved. When you total up all software licences used in major research projects you are talking millions of dollars, months of research time preserved for actual research.

Re:Kitchen staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Fresh Pots?! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhdCslFcKFU

Re:Kitchen staff

[Taco Cowboy]

When I drink that much coffee I can understand Spanish

Huh !

When I drink that much I can understand anything !!

Re:Kitchen staff

[godefroi]

I know, right, I mean, when you've only got $9 billion in the budget, you can go around willy-nilly spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on license fees!

Re:Kitchen staff

[mcgrew]

You're confusing coffee with cocaine. Coffee doesn't cause heart disease. It does, however, protect you against the most common skin cancers and can help stave off your brain's aging.

There is nothing whatever wrong with coffee.

Re:Kitchen staff

[rtb61]

Your kind of attitude adds an extra billion to the budget. Here's how it works, it's all in percentages, each and every budget items counts, when you start inflating one area you soon find yourself inflating every single other area with the same bullshit excuse, in a billion dollar budget what difference does another few million make, repeated over and over and over again. Pretty soon a 5 billion dollar budget becomes 9 billion and no one knows how or why.

Re:Kitchen staff

[ancienthart]

There is nothing whatever wrong with coffee.

Unless you have a family history/susceptibility to glaucoma.
http://www.glaucomanet.org/2012/01/coffee-and-glaucoma/

My father used to drink 9-11 cups of coffee on average per day, and his glaucoma kicked in in his early 40's. My grandfather would drink 3-4 cups of tea at the most per day, and his glaucoma didn't kick in until his early 70's.

The funny this was, when I told my father this, and got him onto decaffinated coffee, it only took him 2 weeks to instinctively switch to tea. I then had to tell him that tea contains just as much caffeine as coffee.

Re:Kitchen staff

[godefroi]

Erm, you stated that using Linux "means saving tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars of licence fees". I'm not sure how that became four billion. Let's do it in reverse:

"You use Linux, saving tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars of license fees, and pretty soon, even your hardware is free! You can drop your $5b budget down to a Starbucks gift card and an iPad for browsing thingverse and instructables!"

Re:Kitchen staff

[Trogre]

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
- Paul Erdos

Can't run windows

[Murdoch5]

Well Linux has to, if they ran Windows they would only discover the blue screen. Linux has the stability, the performance and the design that make it the ideal candidate for the scientific environment.

Re:Can't run windows

[Anonymous Coward]

But then I think we would have insight into the relationship between the blue screen and the structure of the universe, potentially much more valuable than Higgs Bosun itself. They blew it

Re:Can't run windows

[tftp]

Linux is much better than Windows for headless operation. Each instance of Windows assumes a live human sitting in front of the screen. Linux assumes nothing, and it has all the remote access and maintenance tools one might want. This is somewhat important if you build clusters.

Linux also has a far better multiuser operation. Windows supports multiple users, in theory, but outside of impossibly expensive Terminal Servers this remains just a theoretical possibility. A single logon will eat a gigabyte and one CPU core. Linux logins are lightweight (at cost of one getty and one bash) and once you are in you can run whatever you want. Furthermore, if your software needs X it runs on your terminal and not on the more expensive and heavily used shared server.

Windows' advantages are simple: bling and availability of COTS software. Since none of that is of interest to scientists, Windows has no advantage over Linux - except that scientists may run Windows on their laptops for sake of MS Office and Outlook.

Re:Can't run windows

[Murdoch5]

I completely agree!

also desks

[Anonymous Coward]

couldn't have done it without the desks

coat tails

[AwesomeMcgee]

and Euclid as well, but that really doesn't have anything to do with the fact that these people found the Higgs Boson with the power of their invariably large brains. The tools may have been important, but you and I have Linux and we didn't do it, so let's leave the credit where it really belongs.

Re:coat tails

[Anonymous Coward]

The tools may have been important, but you and I have Linux and we didn't do it, so let's leave the credit where it really belongs.

I'd contend that manpower is the bottleneck, and time spent writing and debugging software is time taken away from designing and performing experiments. How much time, exactly, depends on the precise software.

I'm not saying it's on the scale of years, but that's what I'm opening up for discussion. It's certainly plausible, given the sheer scale of work that's gone into the development of Linux, that there may be features that researchers would have had to recreate at great effort and expense had Linux not existed.

Re:coat tails

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that Linux carries validation from "large brains" as well as the small brains from forums such as Slashdot. So in terms of Linux vs Windows penis wars, Linux gets points because some incredibly large brains picked it over other things. One has to think that the large brainers have a bit more rationality than the small brainers of Slashdot. Thus there is some validity in choosing Linux despite the fact that small brain Slashdotters like Harryfeet continuously put it down because of its marketshare in an area still in the clutches of a monopoly.

Windows is a vital part of the LHC

[geekoid]

http://www.lhc.gov.uk/Frameworks-Directory/Aluminium-Windows-Doors-A5/

what?

Re:Windows is a vital part of the LHC

[lukeshep]

try clicking 'Using LHC'. I'm confused...

plus

[Anonymous Coward]

oxygen played a vital role in the discovery of the new boson at CERN. Oxygen plays a major role in the running of their brains. Finally the world will take oxygen seriously as a means to move humanity forward.

Re:plus

[Anonymous Coward]

No, actually the Higgs Boson made it all possible! It made the oxygen exist in the first place.

Fpk sponge

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD Aadicts, flame

Vital?

[Missing.Matter]

The only truly vital piece of equipment involved was the LHC, which created the necessary energy levels to find something like the Higgs Boson. Everything else seems like interchangeable tools: if it wasn't one operating system it would be another, if it wasn't one open source solution, it would be another maybe even closed source solution.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been noted by others (in the article, for example) that Linux is the undisputed king of high-performance computing, in the public sector at least. My only assumption is that that is not random, that there are reasons for it.

As far as other open source solutions BSD kernels generally do not have such good support for hard real time applications.

I have seen a lot of posts by you on this site and Engadget. You put down open source solutions and champion MS almost always. You also tend to almost always use populist ignorant style rhetoric. Consider the possibility that the internet would be a better place if you would just shut up and listen for a while.

Re:Vital?

[rev0lt]

It has been noted by others (in the article, for example) that Linux is the undisputed king of high-performance computing, in the public sector at least. My only assumption is that that is not random, that there are reasons for it.

If it wasn't Linux, it could be anything else. Even a heavily customized Minix version. Stuff got done before Linux prime time, and while it is a good choice now (for more than one reason), it isn't irreplaceable. And probably good algorithm design has far more consequences in performance than the choice of the operating system.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't Linux, it could be anything else.

If anything else would have been better to suit the scientists' at CERNs needs, they have been using it. They have a practically unlimited budget and they are extremely competent. They used the best tool available for the job. Why is this so contraversial? Because it treads on some people's "feelings" of what is better?

Stuff got done before Linux prime time, and while it is a good choice now (for more than one reason), it isn't irreplaceable.

Why the need to bring out the strawmen? Nobody said anything different than what you are saying here and your arguments can be equally applied to anything under the sun. If you are going to bother to reply to something, actually adding to the conversation would be a good start.

And probably good algorithm design has far more consequences in performance than the choice of the operating system.

No shit and a great algorithm coupled with the best kernel for the job is even better.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody said anything different than what you are saying here

The article is saying differently: that Linux was vital to the discovery of the Higgs boson. That is, without Linux, the particle would not have been discovered. I don't see any strawmen here.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking retarded? Here's what they guy said:

Stuff got done before Linux prime time, and while it is a good choice now (for more than one reason), it isn't irreplaceable.

Which is nothing but rhetoric and pure strawman. Damn, take the blinders off.

Re:Vital?

[Tough Love]

But it wasn't "one operating system or another", it was Linux. By your argument, collider rings are also interchangeable, and that is in fact true. Which is why the Higgs was discovered in the US of A by the Superconducting Supercollider... oh wait, that didn't happen because there isn't one.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

The claim is without Linux, the Higgs boson would not have been discovered. How do you test that claim? One way is to look at past particle discoveries and see how Linux helped them. Seeing as that CERN, FermiLab, and other particle accelerators existed and made discoveries before Linux was ever invented, I don't see how it can be claimed Linux in particular was vital. Linux was used, Linux was instrumental. True. It couldn't have been done without computers, but it could have been done without Linux.

No one yet in this entire story has put forth a reason why Linux in particular is so unique and special that no other solution on the planet could accomplish the same feat. Even the article, from a CERN physicist, can't articulate that. The most prevalent argument is "the best supercomputers use Linux therefore it is the best" which fails to account that supercomputers exist that do not run on Linux, and people do real work on these supercomputers.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

The claim is without Linux, the Higgs boson would not have been discovered.

Dude, keep up. It's called a conversation. I was responding to the guy's specific point. I'm sure your personal anti-Linux vendetta is very important but that's not what is on the table at this very moment.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware of the conversation at hand? Let me summarize:

a1): Linux was an irreplaceable part of the higgs boson discovery.
b1): Linux was used as a tool that could be replaced by any other
a2): Linux was better than the other tools
b2): While Linux is a good tool, other tools were used in the past to do things, so it is indeed replaceable.
a3): No one is claiming that Linux is irreplaceable, stop arguing that


And this is where I jumped in, citing claim a1, where this is precisely argued that Linux was irreplaceable.

Re:Vital?

[Missing.Matter]

It has been noted by others (in the article, for example) that Linux is the undisputed king of high-performance computing, in the public sector at least. My only assumption is that that is not random, that there are reasons for it.

Appeal to majority. This is the same as saying Windows is the best desktop OS because installed on 90% of PCs, which is a bogus argument. Before Linux was the king of supercomputing, UNIX was the king. Were Linux never invented, UNIX would probably still be used on the vast majority of super computers today to great effect.

As far as other open source solutions BSD kernels generally do not have such good support for hard real time applications.

The quote the story is based on was with respect to data analysis, which has no real-time requirement. For the actual data-collection, which is real-time critical, an actual real-time OS is most likely employed.

I have seen a lot of posts by you on this site and Engadget....

Wow, what the hell is your problem? What exactly have I done to you? Did I kick your dog or something? If you've been stalking me as well as you claim, you'd also know I work with Linux for a living in the robotics field, and contribute regularly to projects such as ROS, which we use almost exclusively on our robots. Open source is key to my work, and I wouldn't be able to do what I do without it, but I'm under no illusions that a) Linux is integral to my field or my research or b) the open source model is perfect. My work is based in mathematics, so I am platform agnostic. In fact we have a robot that runs entirely on a cluster of mac minis. We use Linux because it has the best driver support for our sensors, but were Linux to disappear tomorrow, we would write drivers for a new platform and continue on as if nothing happened.

I suspect this is the same for CERN. I did my undergraduate in Physics and worked under a particle physicist who worked at CERN and Fermilab. I did actual work on data from CERN (not the LHC but Linac2) and Fermilab's Tevatron using CERN's own ROOT, which is cross platform supporting Linux, Solaris, OSX, Windows, and others. For the number crunching I had time on supercomputers that ran modified SuSE, CentOS, and Solaris. So I'm really failing to see how Linux is so special, that without it the discovery of the Higgs boson would not have happened.

While I'm on this rant I'd like to take a stab at the other logical fallacy I see being plastered on this thread: appeal to authority, that the minds of CERN are so brilliant that if they use Linux, it must be better than all else. As a student of physics, through my course work and APS meetings I've been to, I've met high energy physicists, computational biologists, astrophysicists, computational statistical mechanic... ists... the common thread between them all is that they treat computers are tools meant to support the physics, which is front and center. There is no platform loyalty. The aforementioned CERN scientist uses Maple on a Mac for his work. I took several courses by a computational physicists who was a student of Richard Feynman and who programmed in FORTRAN and used Solaris. I also met a 90 year old pioneer of the standard model who doesn't even use computers, and he was 1000x more vital to the discovery of the Higgs boson than any particular computational platform.

Re:Vital?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as other open source solutions BSD kernels generally do not have such good support for hard real time applications.

Well, CERN makes extensive use of Force10 network appliances, and they are all NetBSD-based.

Without a reliable, high speed/low latency network, I bet there wouldn't be anything to compute or analyse.

What's the point of TFA anyway? Nowadays, everything is used as an excuse to put Linux to the front, while its role is not more important than the other technological pieces used (compilers, C++, userland apps and infrastructure, ...). *sigh*

Re:Vital?

[rev0lt]

If anything else would have been better to suit the scientists' at CERNs needs, they have been using it. They have a practically unlimited budget and they are extremely competent. They used the best tool available for the job. Why is this so contraversial? Because it treads on some people's "feelings" of what is better?

Maybe you should check the facts. Have a look at http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/840543/files/lhcc-2005-024.pdf (page 77). They clearly explain why they chose Linux, and why they chose a RH-based version.
The article wasn't about how important was Oracle RAC in the discovery, it was about how important linux was. Fact is, the choice of the base operating system is almost irrelevant in the paper that details the Tier-1 infrastructure.

Why the need to bring out the strawmen? Nobody said anything different than what you are saying here and your arguments can be equally applied to anything under the sun.

It's not strawmen. When you say it is the best tool available for the job, you don't present facts. And no, just because the top clusters use it doesn't make it an ideal tool. The same way Windows isn't the perfect desktop, or Renault isn't the best auto manufacturer. However, if you do read the report, you'll find out they chose linux because they already used it internally, so for them it was the best choice.

No shit and a great algorithm coupled with the best kernel for the job is even better.

I'd say stock linux is probably miles away from "the best kernel" (from a pure technological perspective) for a numerical computing cluster (the scheduler is optimized for multi-process smp and responsive task switching, not single-process smp with almost no task switching and heavy latency requirements), but my experience with it is quite limited. A paralelizable algoritm on a given problem can reduce execution time 100x - do you really believe that choosing a different operating system (or kernel or whatever) makes a difference that big?

Fanboys...

[frostilicus2]

No, Linux didn't play a vital role; computing, brains, mathematics and a big-ass particle accelerator did. On the computational side, BSD, Windows, Aix, Irix, Solaris could have all done exactly the same thing. I thought Mac Fanboys were bad, but Linux uncovering the fundamental nature of the universe? Wow.

Re:Fanboys...

[Missing.Matter]

He also says "In terms of data analysis, Windows could be used in principle. We could also use some type of device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape according to a simple table of rules." and "I work primarily in physics, not in computing, so I doubt that I am able to argue very competently for Linux over something such as BSD." but then goes on to conclude Linux is "vital" even though it's on principle interchangeable with these other platforms.

Re:Fanboys...

[jedidiah]

Anything except for BSD would have been considerably more expensive, possibly prohibitively so.

Yes. Sometimes the availability of tools that don't actually break your budget is a relevant and meaningful thing. Most of us don't have drawers full of cash.

Re:Fanboys...

[Missing.Matter]

So how was Linux vital and BSD not?

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you make a valid argument to why those other OS's are better? Obviously the geniuses at CERN feel otherwise. But, I'm sure you are much smarter than they are and just need to go and set them straight. Fucking delusional fanboy that you are.

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux supports hardware that BSD doesn't and performs better in hard realtime applications. This is common knowledge amongst people that actually work in this field.

Re:Fanboys...

[symbolset]

The Turing Machine reference is remarkably astute for someone outside the specialty.

Re:Fanboys...

[gman003]

Actually, the article addresses that. Or at the very least, the author says "dammit, Jim, I'm a particle physicist not a computer scientist! I don't know why they picked Linux over BSD!"

Most likely, Linux was just something the admins had more experience with, although technical matters probably played a minor role as well.

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is not a real-time operating system. Neither is Windows, Mac OS X or a BSD.

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody said it was. The point is that it is closer than the competition. Add that fact to its superior hardware support over BSD and its a shoe-in.

Re:Fanboys...

[SplashMyBandit]

> On the computational side, BSD, Windows, Aix, Irix, Solaris could have all done exactly the same thing.
In theory yes, in practice, no. As a former astrophysicist we used to use Linux and Solaris for our computing despite the fact that most of the non-computing competent people used Windows on their desktops. The reason we used Linux is that it is a vastly superior development environment than Windows (Visual Studio was not useful for our purposes) and is also vastly superior (that is, easier and more open to us) for hardware integration than Windows. We also were producing and analyzing huge amounts of data, so were using 64-bit Linux while Windows users were still figuring out how to get their 16-bit legacy apps working on their 32-bit systems.

We also wanted uptimes of months whereas with Windows of the time you crossed your fingers that you'd go a day without some kind of fault happening. I'm sure fellow scientists at CERN developed a lot of software themselves and also found Linux far better for this purpose. That is why techie people prefer Linux over Windows - for practical reasons rather than 'religion' as you suppose. The reason you fail to understand this is probably because you are not trying to develop software for 'big data' problems. That's ok, please just understand that this colors your personal view with an inaccurate picture. Best to keep quiet about stuff you know nothing about.

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

You still don't address how any of the favors of unix couldn't have done the same thing though.

This article triumphs Linux like it was a factor in the discovery. It wasn't even a remote one.

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Scalability.

Re:Fanboys...

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former astrophysicist we used to use Linux and Solaris for our computing...

As a current astrophysicist, we still have Solaris on a few legacy systems, but otherwise use Linux more-or-less uniformly.

Re:Fanboys...

[Missing.Matter]

I like how you ask me to make a valid argument, then turn around and make one that is not at all valid yourself. See: appeal to authority. Not to be outdone you follow up with a nice ad hominem.

It's not that those other operating systems are better. They might not be. Linux might be the best. It's the idea that Linux was vital, that without Linux, there would be no discovery.

I wuld also like to thank

[geekoid]

the cafeteria staff, without them, we wouldn't have ate

Heh, I wonder if service people would put that on their resume?
Janitorial staff when Higgs was found.

Turned out he was on holiday leaving magnum to fend for himself.

TIL smash Windows into OSX, destroying both....

[Picass0]

...and you'll find god.

Am I interpreting that right?

Re:TIL smash Windows into OSX, destroying both....

[DigiShaman]

No, but you will find Tron. Close enough?

Re:TIL smash Windows into OSX, destroying both....

[Picass0]

Throw in Olivia Wilde and you've got a deal.

Ubuntu Linux?

[darkpixel2k]

So that's why it took them so long to find the Higgs Boson. They had to 'see' it.
If they'd had a properly working audio stack, they would have been able to hear it years ago...

Re:Ubuntu Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

I support thousands of Linux desktops of various configurations where I work and have not had an audio problem for at least 4 years. You know, you can retire the outdated rhetoric and still have friends. Just saying.

Re:Ubuntu Linux?

[Mike Buddha]

They would have found it years ago if they had configured their window manager properly. RTFM next time.

Re:Ubuntu Linux?

[humanrev]

Easy way to disprove your argument - install the Linux build of Doom 3 and run it on something like Ubuntu. You won't get any audio because Doom 3 uses OSS audio, which is not compiled in the kernel that modern versions of Ubuntu uses. You can redirect Doom 3 to use ALSA, but that requires a bit of modification to its launch parameters and even then, if you don't do it right you'll have a few seconds of audio lag.

Yes I know Doom 3 is an oldish game (2004) and that games from the Humble Bundles for example don't have any audio issues, but there's an example of a commercial game that has audio problems out of the box without tweaking. On Windows, it works perfectly.

In related news...

[loufoque]

Computers played a major role in the discovery of the Higgs boson.

I hear electricity played a pretty important role, too.

Re:In related news...

[wonkey_monkey]

Screw electricity, let's hear it for zinc!

Re:In related news...

[smitty97]

So, a round of applause for...this inanimate carbon rod!

But does it run Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I guess it does. Never mind.

Yeah, vital

[Anonymous Coward]

About as much as vital as the toilet paper in the labs' toilets. Don't know the brand right now, but the experiment wouldn't have been possible without it undoubtfully.

Re:Yeah, vital

[Mike Buddha]

It's in Europe, they don't use toilet paper. True story.

Re:Yeah, vital

[rubycodez]

we then salute the bidet, and its enabling effect on the morale of clean-assed boffins

Solaris

[anyaristow]

Scientific installations used to use Solaris a lot. Linux isn't better. It's just cheaper.

Re:Solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that "used to" and now are two different things, right? Linux development for hard realtime applications has far outstripped Solaris. It's hasn't been a contest in several years now. Get with the times, grampa. Furthermore, whatever you're smoking that makes you think fucking CERN gives a shit about price tag on their software, please pass that shit around.

Re:Solaris

[rev0lt]

Linux development for hard realtime applications has far outstripped Solaris

Customized versions of Linux have far outstripped Solaris. And while Oracle seems to have realized the commercial potential of Sun Grid Engine, there are a whole lot of clusters (Linux, Solaris, BSD) using it to crunch numbers.

I find it a bit amusing the importance that people give to the "Linux" sticker on big clusters, specially when used in specialized applications that often translate to a heavily customized kernel and 1 userland binary. The fact that it (the kernel) is well documented, and have no licensing fees attached probably have more to do with the choice than the "technically superior" bullshit argument or the "windows/osx/whatever can't do that!" I often read here.

Re:Solaris

[oakgrove]

specially when used in specialized applications that often translate to a heavily customized kernel and 1 userland binary.

The point is that it can be customized that way. Thanks for pointing out one of the reasons for CERN's choice.

and have no licensing fees attached probably have more to do with the choice

BS. This is CERN we're talking about. They can afford whatever they want and they chose Linux.

Re:Solaris

[SplashMyBandit]

Linux even with realtime extensions can still get stuck due to hardware I/O operations. The PC architecture isn't really up to real-time. Customized boards running Linux are less of a problem. Sparcs boxes are suitable for true realtime. Even years ago I remember having a frozen machine due to I/O problems and simply hitting Stop+A got me a working console (trying the same thing on Linux would have gotten me nowhere). Sparcs also had I/O backplanes that blew everything else out of the water - which is why they were used for moving large quantities of data around. There are many areas where Linux has moved far beyond Solaris, but I/O performance and true realtime were never one of them.

Re:Solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you! Finally someone gets the point that Linux wasn't first and it wasn't best. People think this shit just dropped right out of the sky with no threats to anything else ever. Linux fanbois irk me in that fashion... Linus copied a well known and very well established series of other OSs that had been in production before Linus was even thought of. Linux fanbois need to get over this fact and accept that their OS of choice is a copy of a copy of a copy and it would still exist under a different name if Linus was never born.
 
Oh, and for the retards screaming about "custom!!!"? Do you really think that everyone out there deals with OTS technology only? Jesus fucking Christ!

Re:Solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, what a fucking jackass you dime-a-dozen anti-Linux 'tards are. Linux won and Unix lost. BSD is an also-ran in the Free software world and CERN used the best bits for the job which happened to be Linux. Suck it up, chump.

Re:Solaris

[rubycodez]

if you haven't noticed, the Unix(tm) world is self-destructing mostly due to greed. SCO Unix, IRIX, HP/UX, Solaris.....going, going and soon mostly gone. AIX a little different, just fading because IBM would rather push other solutions. Unix(tm) lost. BSD used hugely in the control/appliance space. But Unix lost. Your beloved Unix generally won't have a flavor that scales from cell phone to massive SMP machine, or from single processor server to massive parallel supercomputer. But Linux covers that, and BSD *could* but usually is chosen not too.

Re:Solaris

[devent]

Linux is just cheaper? The LHC was budged at 7.5 billion euros. You think they had a few millions for a few Solaris (or anything else) workstations if they needed Solaris?

Re:Solaris

[Dynetrekk]

Why isn't this modded funny rather than insightful?

Re:Solaris

[Barsteward]

"The LHC was budged at 7.5 billion euros" - over how many years? One scientist on TV last night said it costs less than a medium size university to run annually

Re:Solaris

[rev0lt]

The point is that it can be customized that way. Thanks for pointing out one of the reasons for CERN's choice.

Where did I said it couldn't?

BS.This is CERN we're talking about. They can afford whatever they want and they chose Linux.

If only there was a way to know for shure... Oh wait! There is! Citing from http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/840543/files/lhcc-2005-024.pdf Page 78:

For a couple of years the CERN version has been based on the RedHat Linux Distribution. RedHat changed their licensing policies in 2003 and they have been selling since then their different Linux RH Enterprise versions on a profitable basis. After long negotiations in 2003/2004 CERN decided to follow a four-way strategy:
collaboration with FNAL on Scientific Linux, a HEP Linux distribution based on the re-compiled RH Enterprise source code, which RH has to provide without charge due to the GPL obligations.
buying RH Enterprise licences for the Oracle on Linux service having a support contract with RH
pursuing further negotiations with RH about possible HEP-wide agreements.
An investigation about alternative Linux distributions came to the conclusion that there was no advantage in using SUSE, Debian or others. SUSE, for example, is still available free of charge. However, the rather different implementation would require significant effort in adapting our management tools. In addition there are question marks about the community support.
CERN will continue with the described Linux strategy for the next couple of years. The situation will be kept under continuous review.

So, they didn't choose generically Linux, but a RH-based version because of... wait for it... vendor lock-in. And to cut licensing costs, they decided to only license the copies that were related to their Oracle RAC cluster. If you read the report, you'll also find that not only they use a TON of internally-developed software, but also that the choice related to operating systems is almost irrelevant in the big picture. And please note, while the report has a bird-eye view of the whole structure, it only details the Tier-1 datacenter/computing grid. The data is accessible/replicated to dozens of computing grids all over the world (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Science_Grid), and while most of them also run Linux (many of them are run by public entities with tight budgets such as universities and institutes), it seems to be more important what applicational software they run on it than what operating system is used. In a way, a zealot would be happy - it means that Linux seems to be ubiquous. Or irrelevant as a key choice. For me, it's all good.

Re:Solaris

[oakgrove]

Wow. You Linux haters reach more everyday. So an operating system that you can download for free (and, yes, you can download the source to red hat) is lock in now? Straight out of the proprietard F U D book. You've done well. Bonus points for the 'Linux zealot' phrase.

Re:Solaris

[jellomizer]

OS X (Certified Unix OS) has a higher market share then Linux does...

Re:Solaris

[rev0lt]

~

Wow. You Linux haters reach more everyday.

So, stating facts instead of debating ideologies is hate?

So an operating system that you can download for free (and, yes, you can download the source to red hat) is lock in now?

Did you even read the quote? The motive why they specifically use RH-based systems is because their tools don't run on any other linux distro. And no, you can't download the "source to red hat". You can, however, download *most of the source*, the (mostly) gpl-licensed code. That's why CentOS isn't a verbatim copy of RHES, but it does maintain binary compatibility.

Straight out of the proprietard F U D book. You've done well. Bonus points for the 'Linux zealot' phrase.

Meh. I tend to use the right tool for the job. Most of the time is BSD, sometimes is Linux, and in some rare occasions are proprietary solutions. But it seems that the idea that Linux isn't a key choice in everything is a hate crime for some people.

Re:Solaris

[oakgrove]

You're not stating facts by calling people zealots. You are being insulting and spreading FUD. And binary compatibility is what matters so, yes, you have the red hat source. And since their tools run on red hat they also run on centos and scientific Linux which are both free. Some lock in. As far as disagreeing being a hate crime you obviously know something about that.

Re:Solaris

[rev0lt]

You're not stating facts by calling people zealots. You are being insulting and spreading FUD.

So, citing an official paper is spreading FUD? Good to know.

And binary compatibility is what matters so, yes, you have the red hat source.

Well, no. That's why they use RH and not Scientific Linux for their RAC cluster. Because for some specific applications, it isn't the same thing. But you'd probably already knew that, if you worked with both RHCE and one of the freely available RHCE-source-based distros.

And since their tools run on red hat they also run on centos and scientific Linux which are both free. Some lock in.

Their tools only run on RH-based systems (their words, not mine). Since both CentOS and Scientific Linux specifically depend from RH upstream, yeah, it's vendor lock-in. It's a bit like saying "this app can run on any MS Windows version, even if you create a customized version of it".

As far as disagreeing being a hate crime you obviously know something about that.

Yeah, I keep receiving comments from people that worry more about propaganda and brand stickers than facts and available choices. It's part of life, I guess.

Their Iphone tweeted out the news

[cod3r_]

GO IPHONE!

Well... see you've got it wrong....

[kiriath]

The point is not that they used Linux, or Windows, or BSD or OSX or any other OS. The point is that a group of people joined together with a goal, selected the appropriate tools for whichever task it is they were working on, and employed them. A collective union was able to transcend the barrier of the "OS Argument" and just get things done. I more admire a network that has a cohabitation of multiple Operating Systems, working together - than a single OS focused environment. There is no telling what other discoveries could be made if people could get past the OS argument, and learn to use whichever tool makes THEM more productive. =D

Ubuntu?

[scheme]

Wait, where does Ubuntu come in? CMS and ATLAS are standardized on SL5/6 and I'm guessing LHCb and ALICE are also using SL. Who's using Ubuntu?

Re:Ubuntu?

[tiffany352]

I can see it being used on the tier 2 servers, as they're located at colleges around the world and not as time-critical like tier-0 servers.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, I don't think there is any Ubuntu at Cern. Last time I visited they were all using Scientific Linux.

http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/

Re:Ubuntu?

[Brannoncyll]

Wait, where does Ubuntu come in? CMS and ATLAS are standardized on SL5/6 and I'm guessing LHCb and ALICE are also using SL. Who's using Ubuntu?

Also the LHC computing grid is built on Scientific Linux.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

No Ubuntu. Here is the list of CERN linux installs.

http://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/install/installservice.shtml

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

And thanks have to go also to the Red Hat. SL/SLC is a clone of RHEL.

Re:Ubuntu?

[msevior]

Not there either. This story was written by a Ubuntu fan site.

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, NDGF-T1, uses Ubuntu for some of it's monitoring services.

The WLCG is a very complex beast.

My Angry Shoes

[Angrywhiteshoes]

Are responsible for my college education, because they helped me walk to class.

Comic?

[synapse7]

This reminds me I of a comic I saw years ago that was at the expense of Mac users. I believe the comic was even related to CERN and pictured a bunch of mac users in a coffee shop. Has anybody else seen it, know where it can be found on the interweb?

Re:Comic?

[Anonymous Coward]

This one?

http://techbuket.net/190

Re:Comic?

[Mike Buddha]

Has anybody else seen it, know where it can be found on the interweb?

Can it be found on the interweb? I'm sure someone's already made porn out of it.

Re:Comic?

[synapse7]

That is it, thank you.

Linux Played a Vital Role In Discovery of Higgs Bo

[Dcnjoe60]

I hope people appreciate the gravity of that statement.

yeah right

[Anonymous Coward]

Pix, or it didn't happen.

If Microsoft had been involved

[Tough Love]

If Microsoft had been involved they would have discovered the Zune boson, the particle that mediates pogo dancing.

SLC sucks!

[Pro-feet]

I have to bring it to the open: Scientific Linux sucks!
At least on the desktop.
It's so ancient, but then... also super stable. And that is crucial for all our online and offline computing needs.
Don't we all (at CERN) still have some SLC4, even SLC3, systems around? Upgrades are so painful, especially when hardware is in the game...

Re:SLC sucks!

[diego.viola]

Bullshit.

If it was Apple...

[blattin]

If the headline was "Apple Played a Vital Role In Discovery of Higgs Boson" just imagine the uproar here.

Re:If it was Apple...

[Tough Love]

Apple did not play any role in the discovery of the Higgs because it is too busy launching new patent troll lawsuits.

Re:If it was Apple...

[blattin]

Well played, sir!

Car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha no, OS X is UNIX® which is just worthless branding. You pay your money, you get your brand. For enough money Ferrari would put their badge on a mid-range family saloon car.

Linux isn't about branding. With Linux you get no badge, but it goes around the 'ring in under seven minutes. Doesn't need a badge, everybody who matters knows what it is and why they need it.

Aren't We Past This?

[detain]

Didn't we already prove linux has a place in the world? Why are we still getting these stories still trying to validate linux.

Male cow manure

[dutchwhizzman]

Brush up on your hardware. The latest generation x86_64 supercomputing grids have much faster IO and memory bandwidth that the latest generation SPARC boxes/grids have.

SPARC is just as suitable for realtime as x86_64. true realtime is in the programming, not the IO. Counting cyles for every operation you program to make sure you know where each bit is at any cycle during the running of your program is true "real time". Practical "realtime", like what you are talking about is something completely different. That works because your load never exceeds your systems limitations and is just a matter of sufficient overkill on your hardware selection and carefully disabling every cron job that gets in the way of your limits. That too can be done on any machine and has nothing to do with SPARC or not.

Last but not least, only the sampling of the data for the LHC is "real time", the calculations are done later.

Re:Male cow manure

[SplashMyBandit]

There are various types of 'realtime', of course a realtime system is not the same as a high throughput system, but high throughput does help. I've personally used the RTAI realtime enhancements with Linux and I would still pick Solaris over Linux any day. VxWorks et al may be a different story, but the discussion was about realtime Linux vs Solaris. An x86_64 grid still had large latencies between the nodes compared with an *equivalent cost* Sun grid at the time. That's why Sun boxes used to be chosen for Internet-scale work (since they had a huge number of slower cores connected by a bus that was faster than any external bus). The economics has changed since then, making only a few applications worth the effort - but if you need high throughput and money is not an issue then the Solaris boxes (and associated gear) are usually still better. For fast computing then you use the X86 boxes - but that is not the same as fast throughput nor low latency. The Solaris O/S and gear also has better guaranteed low-latency response when you are interfacing with hardware. So you seem a bit confused about why x86_64 is used in supercomputing and how it actually has zero relevance to the discussion that was going on.

LHC runs as ROOT?

[Seq]

I don't even run X as root.

Whew!

[Bacon Bits]

I got worried there for a moment. I almost thought you weren't going to be condescending, self-righteous, or pedantic. Rest assured, your actual point has been lost because you've completely offended your audience.

Re:Whew!

[SplashMyBandit]

Nice sig! All I did is point out the experience of myself and my fellow scientists and why we chose to use Linux over Windows, and the reasons why we considered it a better choice for our purposes. However, it was you who chose to interpret this defensively and in a particular way. I cannot help you with that I'm afraid. My goal was not to offend anyone - it was to help the open-minded understand why scientists choose Linux, since I have direct personal experience with this. Doing a PhD on the computational aspects of gravitational microlensing taught me and awful lot about scientific large-scale computing; I started out on Windows and later switched to Linux since the former really sucked for *scientific purposes*. I believe this is on-topic and pertinent to the thread, moreso than the comments of users who have little concept of computing beyond their desktop or their corporate mail server. So, my apologies if you feel aggrieved about my pointing out the deficiencies in Windows for computing similar to CERN. I would welcome the cessation of sarcastic and irrelevant ad hominem and be very pleased if you could enlighten us as to why Windows is a better solution for scientific computing (I genuinely wish to know why you think it is - as a trained scientist I'm always prepared to listen so I can invalidate my own observations and assumptions).

Re:Whew!

[Bacon Bits]

The full quote is much better, but SlashDot's ridiculously limiting signature length forced me to truncate it: "The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity made by those responsible for the security of a nation." -- Alan Dershowitz in Tortured Reasoning.

I do not think Windows is better for science. I wouldn't try to tell someone their choice in computing was wrong. That would make me no better than an actual Linux zealot, Mac fanboy, or Microsoft snob. I know Linux works extremely well for scientific endeavors because it still provides easy access to the basic Turing machine. Just as Windows and Java are favored in business because they offer layers of abstractions that make it easier to distance yourself from the Turing machine to represent the types of models the business world requires. It's similar to the reason Physics favors calculus (where numbers only exist to show their relationship to other numbers or are objective measurements) and Psychology favors statistics (where numbers tend to represent natural objects or are subjective measurements) yet both sciences use the scientific method (hypothesize, observe, evaluate, predict).

My point was that your post was perfectly fine until the last three sentences. They serve no purpose but to discredit the reader's own experiences as irrelevant. I understand you're trying to force the reader to examine where you're coming from (scientific programming) . The problem is that it comes across merely as an appeal to authority, and those don't work very well on an anonymous Internet. You literally say "best to keep quiet about stuff you know nothing about," which says "you clearly know nothing, don't bother talking." To me, that's one of the most offensive things to say I can think of in the context of a discussion. Is what you said so far removed from "STFU & GTFO"?

In your response to my post, you also say " However, it was you who chose to interpret this defensively and in a particular way. I cannot help you with that I'm afraid." I would caution you against this type of phrasing as well. It also comes across as condescending. Communication requires effort of two parties. You are the one trying to communicate a message. Your job is to make the words you use as clear and concise as possible, because human language is inherently fuzzy and prone to confusion. Many words have multiple definitions as well as cultural connotative and denotative meanings, and all of these meanings are valid as they serve to communicate a message. You do not have the luxury of domain-specific jargon in general language, so you must be very clear with your wording. Even then, you must expect people to misinterpret or ask for clarification. It's safe to assume you would not have tried to communicate if you did not wish to be understood, yes? The alternative is a rather deep rabbit hole. It is then very insulting to be told first I don't know anything and should not respond, and then told it's my fault for failing to understand your message. This will just make me as a listener give up and dismiss your message outright.

Now yes, you'll note I said that communication is a two way street. As a listener it is my responsibility to attempt to interpret your message as openly as possible. That is, to look for as many interpretations of your message as I can, and then, using context, try to decide on the correct one. Additionally, it is the listener's responsibility to ask for clarification when they do not understand the message. Intentionally choosing to interpret things in the most offensive way possible will simply make the speaker give up, I agree. The talking heads on what passes for television news today are far more guilty of this than most lawyers, to the detriment of understanding everywhere. My response to your post was my way -- agreeably unfair and

Re:Whew!

[SplashMyBandit]

Many thanks for taking the time to write such and erudite post. I'll confess that the closing of my original post was unnecessarily dismissive. It was not intended for you but to shut down frostilicious2, who has subsequently been adjudged as Flamebait by our fellow Slashdotters. However, I would ask you to reconsider the points I made in my first and second posts. I use Windows (gaming at home), Linux (work servers) and Mac OS X (my home and work development desktop, thanks to Java) on a daily basis - so I feel I have some understanding of the limitations of each of them. As I continue to point out I have done scientific computing in a manner similar to CERN (although in a different field).

So I don't feel 'religious' about any particular O/S. It is not hard to recognize the O/S-affinity of others (such as frostilicious2), so tried to achieve two things: a) point out why people doing scientific computing vastly prefer Linux to Windows, and b) prevent a potential inane flamewar with frostilicious2. I was also writing from work, so tried to write with the most brevity I could.

With regard to, "I wouldn't try to tell someone their choice in computing was wrong.". I think if you re-read my first post you will find that I point out that "techie people prefer Linux over Windows" and provide reasons why. This is not telling anyone that their choice is wrong, it is pointing out that tech folk prefer Linux for scientific work (which I stress in my second post). It looks like a fair few Slashdotters followed this nuance (or perhaps, it is just the notorious 'group-think'), modding it up to +5. Operating system is indeed a delicate topic. Since I use three commonly, even more on an irregular basis, so I tend to weigh down the effect with which people defend them, so fair point. However, I didn't think it it would be too 'on the nose' to try to explain why CERN chose Linux, given my direct and relevant experience. Pax.

Re:Whew!

[frostilicus2]

My post wasn't intended as a flamebait and, to be honest, I don't necessarily think that it needs to be interpreted as such. I just wish that the article had been less of an ad for Linux (which is really all it is) and had instead discussed some of the (genuinely interesting) computational problems that the scientists encountered. The really interesting things here are the underlying mathematics, the design and operation of the accelerator and the algorithms and hardware on which the analysis was performed. I don't really believe that the fact that everything ran on Linux is all that interesting. According to my wife (who does this kind of thing for a living, albeit in Japan and on a smaller scale) most of the libraries that she needs to run her algorithms can be found on Solaris or Linux and she (and her group) are quite happy to use either: to some extend OS just isn't all that important.

Re:Whew!

[SplashMyBandit]

The title of the article is, "Linux Played a Vital Role In Discovery of Higgs Boson". While the algorithms etc are interesting I believe this thread was about how Linux (or Unix, as you point out and I completely agree still plays a major role in scientific computing) was a significant factor. Yes, this article is fly paper for fanbois. I also think it is also a valuable chance for those stuck on the corporate or gamer desktop to see where Linux is successfully operating in a completely different environment where they are used to. This may help such folks to grok why there are Linux fanbois when Linux seems to unsuitable for their purposes. It turns out Linux is excellent for scientific work (and networking, device control etc etc but the article isn't about that) and perhaps if the cubicle dwellers heard about the scientific suitability of Linux/Unix they might get a glimmer of understanding of why some prefer Linux/Unix over Windows - it is because the scientific types have a different set of problems to solve, and thus arrive at a different optimised solution.

The GNU/Unix-esque tool design philosophy lends itself naturally to solving the engineering problems in tasks such as the (successful) hunt for the Higgs Boson - lots of little problems/scripts cobbled together to process the flow of data. So you are right, while it was not Linux per-se that helped the hunt, it was the Free Software/Unix environment's whole toolchain (of which Linux was the basis they chose) that helped. Yes, they could have used Solaris, but it turns out most of their systems were Linux - which is what the article and this thread discussed for a scientific context.

This is hardly surprising

[Xtifr]

Others have commented on just how widespread Linux really is these days, but that overlooks another reason why this is not news: CERN has been active in the Linux community since the '90s! I remember running into CERN scientists over here to talk about their use of Linux at Linuxworld around '98 or so. Back then, they were basically rolling their own in-house distro, but I'm not surprised to hear they're using Scientific Linux now. Five'll getcha ten that they've had a hand in the development of Scientific Linux. Indeed, if you go to https://www.scientificlinux.org/ you'll see, right at the top of the page: "SL is a Linux Release put together by Fermilab, CERN, and various other labs and universities..." So, they're using the Linux they helped develop! Boy, there's some shocking news!

Re:This is hardly surprising

[Dynetrekk]

They've actually got their own flavor - Scientific Linux CERN (SLC). Most annoying distro I ever used, but that's another story.

Insightful...

[kiwimate]

One of the most insightful comments on this story. Seems like half the Linux community has a massive collective inferiority complex and the other half a laughably unjustifiable superiority complex.

A statistician would say "on the average, then, Linux fanatics are quite normal and well-adjusted".

Re:Linux Played a Vital Role In Discovery of Higgs

[tftp]

A Higgs boson and a graviton are different things. At least because a graviton is expected to have no mass.

good thing...

[sylvandb]

Good thing they got it done before 1 July. Darn leap second....

Ok - "logic" (not formal proof, but idea's there)

[Anonymous Coward]

1.) I have a board with screws in it I wanted removed
2.) I need a screwdriver
3.) Does it MATTER who makes said screwdriver? No.

SAME AS THIS/EQUALS

A.) I have software I need to run to do LHC computations with portable source
B.) I need an Operating System to run said ported ware
C.) Does it MATTER who makes said OS @ that point? No.

* ANYONE who actually codes & has ported code between platforms realizes this much from above...

(They all/each do the same basic things - tools are tools + can be adapted to specific tasks (and yes, MS does license sourcecode to Windows NT-based OS too, just like Open Source Linux for the MOST part))

I do see Mr. Missing Matter's point - it IS logical, feasible, & possible... especially because of what's in my 'p.s.' below + the link there.

APK

P.S.=> So - is there a "Windows Screwdriver" for this? Sure is...

Windows for High Performance Computing -> http://www.microsoft.com/hpc/en/us/product/cluster-computing.aspx

So, there you go...

The fact the LHC folks elected to use Linux means they're probably looking to save monies where possible, AND, are most likely just folks that favor Linux!

Don't get me wrong (many of you often do): I don't "hate Linux"!

(Heck, I probably tried & ran it before many of you ever did in version 1.02 by Slackware circa early 1994 iirc, later in RedHat 6.0 around 1999, for all of Summer 2010 while I was in Europe using KUbuntu 10.04, & now I have a KUbuntu 12.04 laptop going here too - so, yes: Linux works for things too & even a KNOWN "Windows-Centric Fanboy" like myself gives it a go now & then...).

HOWEVER:

What do I dislike? FUD!

I hate FUD spread around regarding it vs. Windows such as "Linux = Secure, Windows != Secure" because one's used more (Windows) by FAR in both PC desktops + Servers combined & thus, presents a larger target for hacker/cracker/malware maker/botnet herder scumbags out there - better "ROI" for their efforts, & more "easy meat noob" type users who are NOT security conscious... what shoots Linux down even more here on THAT VERY FRONT, is ANDROID (Yes, it IS a Linux) - it's got holes appearing on it left & right for YEARS now almost daily!

On the security front? Not a SINGLE ONE of the OS' out there in mainstream usage without security hardening are as SECURE AS POSSIBLE "outta-the-box"/"oem-stock", period... that takes actual work above & beyond std. setup!

... apk

Very Good - I agree, 110%... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"Great Minds Think Alike" -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2959927&cid=40560439

* I like you already - I was working my down thru the replies to your initial post, and posted my post to your initial "naysayer" with an "informal logic proof" (lol, don't laugh @ it, but it's point is EXACTLY yours pretty much)...

So, that all "said & aside"?

Well - When I finally saw your rebuttal, & how much like mine it was (which was backing your initial one with a more 'concrete example equation in mundane terms by analogous comparison' (shoot me for that one, lol, best I could come up with @ nearly 1:30 a.m. here now))?

Hey - I had to reply with a compliment to you for it. This place needs more folks like you around imo, stick around!!!

APK

P.S.=> Loved how you "laid that out", perfectly brilliant... lol, good job & pretty cool experiential background you've got there... apk

Limitations of Scientific Linux ?

[Taco Cowboy]

I was exploring sci-linux' site and they had the "limitation page"

https://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/6x/62/limitations

Well ... it's blank !!
 

Re: Windows in the LHC

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC does use Windows too. To have been there I can say that the LHC control room is filled with computers running Windows. Of course the intensive calculations are made in back rooms filled with 100's of servers running Linux.

Re:Linux Played a Vital Role In Discovery of Higgs

[L4t3r4lu5]

This is definitely...

<SunGlasses>

Massive.

Scientific Linux yes, Ubuntu no.

[msevior]

While Scientific Linux, Centos and RHEL are pervasive in World Large Hardon Collider computing grid (WLCG) and on the local computing clusters involved in LHC computing, Ubuntu isn't.

Full stop.

Ubuntu should get over itself and get back to actually supporting it's users as opposed to shipping half baked software (for example they shipped an early development release of abiword) from debian testing then not updating it even though it's full of bugs and upstream fixes them.

Debian-testing ships development software but it also updates it. This is fine. It is what it says it is. Ubuntu doesn't update, so why ship Debian-testing packages?

Re:Scientific Linux yes, Ubuntu no.

[Xtifr]

Debian-testing ships development software but it also updates it. This is fine. It is what it says it is. Ubuntu doesn't update, so why ship Debian-testing packages?

Ubuntu does update, including backporting (some) fixes, but otherwise, I agree with you.

Ubuntu realized there were people who wanted software that was well-tested and reliable, and also the latest-and-greatest. The fact that these are incompatible requirements wasn't a problem, because anyone silly enough to want that won't notice if you offer software that's neither. Which is exactly what Ubuntu offers. :)

Of course, I've been using Debian unstable on my desktop for about a decade, and it's been reasonably stable the whole time, despite the name. There's an annoying glitch every couple of years, but I can easily live with that. Nothing catastrophic so far. Aptitude warns me about potential incompatibilities, and lets me put packages on hold temporarily till they're resolved. I think Debian unstable is a distro whose qualities are often overlooked because of the scary name. Up-to-date, but not quite bleeding-edge (those go in the experimental repository), rolling-updates, quick turnarounds on problems. Debian's reputation for being old and out-of-date only applies if you ignore the majority of what they produce. The testing and unstable repos are actually a pretty decent match in quality and reliability for many other vendors' official releases.

Re: Linux on the Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was going to be an article about how searching for Linux on the Desktop marketshare trained scientists to find incredibly small, hard to detect, theoretically plausible, yet observationally uncomfirmed things.

If the best trolls have is unjustified downmods

[Anonymous Coward]

I win - it's THAT simple... lol!

APK

P.S.=> Of that ENTIRE POST, I'd say my link to Windows own High Performance Compute Clustering was what they didn't want shown... apk

The best trolls have's unjustified downmods?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, I win - it's THAT simple... lol!

APK

P.S.=> Of that ENTIRE POST, I'd say my link to Windows own High Performance Compute Clustering was what they didn't want shown... apk

Geeze

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

If you are going to start lauding things that were in the room when the Higgs Boson was found, then Hanes underwear and Red Bull could be also credited with helping in the discovery too.

Scientific Linux a win for many of us

[Douglas Goodall]

I caught on early and have been using Scientific Linux for years now. In fact my Internet server has been running on it for years without any serious trouble. I can see that it was a big win for the scientists as the computing budget goes much further if you can build up "Workstation" class machines out of commodity hardware, without the expense and troubles that go along with MS Windows. The work that scientists want to do is more about number crunching and less about Microsoft proprietary software development, Visual Studio, the Windows API, and their latest beta. The availability of open source statistical packages and GNU development software, as well as CUDA compliant video boards hosted on Linux, all operate to the benefit of the projects. It is important to give some credit to Red Hat as well for their willingness to provide their distribution in open source form.

COLORED pencils?

[Anonymous Coward]

You racist prick. :P

Ln X

[asmcmnemonic]

GNU/Linux is a very well-known choice for researchers and scientists for its enormous community of supporters, the documentations it has in different aspects of software engineering, the flexibility of hardware support in different architectures, and for the availability of tools in order to reach a particular goal. Whatever the tools those scientists from different fields use, we thank them for their hard efforts of accomplishments.