Slashdot Mirror
All 500 of the World's Top 500 Supercomputers Are Running Linux (zdnet.com)
Freshly Exhumed shares a report from ZDnet: Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list. Today, it finally happened: All 500 of the world's fastest supercomputers are running Linux. The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list. When the first TOP500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993, Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn't even adopted Tux as its mascot yet. It didn't take long for Linux to start its march on supercomputing.
From when it first appeared on the TOP500 in 1998, Linux was on its way to the top. Before Linux took the lead, Unix was supercomputing's top operating system. Since 2003, the TOP500 was on its way to Linux domination. By 2004, Linux had taken the lead for good. This happened for two reasons: First, since most of the world's top supercomputers are research machines built for specialized tasks, each machine is a standalone project with unique characteristics and optimization requirements. To save costs, no one wants to develop a custom operating system for each of these systems. With Linux, however, research teams can easily modify and optimize Linux's open-source code to their one-off designs. The semiannual TOP500 Supercomputer List was released yesterday. It also shows that China now claims 202 systems within the TOP500, while the United States claims 143 systems.
From when it first appeared on the TOP500 in 1998, Linux was on its way to the top. Before Linux took the lead, Unix was supercomputing's top operating system. Since 2003, the TOP500 was on its way to Linux domination. By 2004, Linux had taken the lead for good. This happened for two reasons: First, since most of the world's top supercomputers are research machines built for specialized tasks, each machine is a standalone project with unique characteristics and optimization requirements. To save costs, no one wants to develop a custom operating system for each of these systems. With Linux, however, research teams can easily modify and optimize Linux's open-source code to their one-off designs. The semiannual TOP500 Supercomputer List was released yesterday. It also shows that China now claims 202 systems within the TOP500, while the United States claims 143 systems.
On a scale of LFS to Mandrake, how bad was your experience?
I'll be installing Linux when I have a week of downtime.
It takes me a couple months to transition a new workstation to Windows. Each time, I try to learn what the native software options are and whether they can meet my current needs. Where it doesn't, I install or use recommended software in most cases to see if it does what I need (WSL) though I do have exceptions for my personal favorite software in a few instances where I'm just unwilling to learn something new. (EditPlus, GIMP, VLC, Sysinternals, Putty.)
A new install of Linux takes the same process, but it has apt or yum or whatever which speeds things up pretty dramatically. With a new Linux desktop install, I just rarely have to learn too many new things... usually. (Eyeballing you hard here systemd!)
If I have to support any significant sized network, and if it's possible, I'd do Linux desktops everywhere. I'd rather use those admin systems than admin Windows... but I work in a job where I have to support Windows because that's all the core software runs on. As an admin, I can do about anything I need to on Microsoft servers and workstations. It'd be false modesty to say I'm not good at admin on Microsoft system. On the other hand, I have used Linux and various BSDs at home and work (on servers) since the late 90's. I could eliminate Microsoft in our workplace and cut our IT departmental work by maybe 30% if only our primary system ran on Linux. I'd miss some of the AD/DHCP/DNS/DFS stack. I'd miss Excel (running native) and Exchange/Outlook, but honestly, running the alternatives in the cloud or Libre would probably reduce our helpdesk workload after a year or two.
I'm good at my jobs, and whatever systems I admin, I'll learn to be good at. Given the ideal scenario, I could run several thousand workstations with the same effort I'd use for a couple hundred Windows workstations. The scenarios I have been hired to handle haven't been ideal, so I've learned to take advantage of the environments I'm in. I'm good at my jobs because I like to learn. I like tinkering, trying new things, scripting and writing real code. That makes me useful, maybe even it helps toward making me valuable.
On the other hand, my varied experiences and experimenting have made me aware that my own weakness is a desire to try new things. If I were designing the systems for a company responsible for my income, it wouldn't be Linux or Windows or Mac. It'd be PC-BSD on the workstations and AIX on the servers. They're boring. Boring is what I look for in a business network. Ideally, the network will be so stable that IT doesn't spend any time working on the backend systems, and that means boring is the goal. I like Linux because I'm always learning new stuff and I like Windows.. sorta, because I'm always being forced to learn new things. That's why I'm sorry to see AIX take a dip off the top 500, but I can see it; Linux is fun.
That said, Linux does not belong in safety systems
Dedicated real time operating systems obviously have their uses, but due to advances in embedded level hardware they're becoming less and less relevant. Even with the overheads of an "almost real time" OS like Linux with some compile switches most modern day embedded hardware is capable of making the dealines in all except some special super low latency use cases. Only place where a real time OS is even necessary these days are rare super low latency and super low power cases (as in under 0.25W).
Serious, 6502s and Z80s are no longer the standard embedded hardware out there anymore.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."