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Finally, It's the Year of the Linux... Supercomputer (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the finally-it's-here dept.

Beeftopia writes: From ZDNet: "The latest TOP500 Supercomputer list is out. What's not surprising is that Linux runs on every last one of the world's fastest supercomputers. Linux has dominated supercomputing for years. But, Linux only took over supercomputing lock, stock, and barrel in November 2017. That was the first time all of the TOP500 machines were running Linux. Before that IBM AIX, a Unix variant, was hanging on for dear life low on the list."

An interesting architectural note: "GPUs, not CPUs, now power most of supercomputers' speed."

10 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Linus by 110010001000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.

    1. Re:Linus by Riceballsan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Welcome to the world of business. If you want to power the world you can... but if you can look good and speak with charisma you can get more fame regardless of knowledge level. Same reason why Jobs was center stage for so long.

    2. Re:Linus by Wookie+Monster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Github that sold for $7.5B wasn't the same Github that was created in three months. Hundreds of people, working for ten years made Github worth $7.5B. That initial version wasn't worth any more than the time spent developing it.

    3. Re:Linus by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.

      Singlehanded huh? So he wrote every version of Linux, every fork, every application, and every improvement was his idea?

      He is obviously the guy who kicked it all off, but to say he did it all singlehanded is selling thousands of people short.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    4. Re:Linus by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is the difference of the creator of the infrastructure vs the creator of the implementation.

      It is like thanking the Firemen who saved your life from the burning building Vs thanking the guys who built the road to get to your home from the fire station, or the materials expert that allowed your home to maintain structure to allow the firemen to reach your home in time.

      The Linux Kernel really doesn't do anything useful, unless there are people who work with it and create with it. Linus may had made a kernel to help control these super computers but it was a team of other people who needed to work with the Kernel to make a super computer out of it.

      Does Linus deserve Credit? Yes. Do Techies worship Musk? Some may.
      However Linus is mostly focused on making the kernel better (a noble goal on its own). While Musk is trying to solve problems, and may choose to use the Linux Kernel as a tool in solving the problem.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:Linus by Drethon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Linus has created literally trillions in economic activity. Singlehanded. But techies worship Musk. Very odd.

      I would say enabled, rather than created. But the work Linus and those who developed Linux did is seriously underrated.

  2. Curmudgeon factor by erp_consultant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's face it, as bright and influential as Torvalds has been, and continues to be, most people would not rate him highly on the warm and fuzzy scale. He is not a man that seeks approval. He is not a man that wants to be in the spotlight.

    In some ways I think he is like Steve Wozniak. Just a shy, quiet but brilliant engineer that would rather just be left alone than doing the cocktail party circuit.

    History tends to reward the Musks and Jobs of this world who are very smart in their own right but also very adept at self promotion.

    I tend to have more respect for Linus and Woz. They are the men behind the curtain doing all the heavy lifting.

    1. Re:Curmudgeon factor by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 4, Insightful

      History tends to reward the Musks and Jobs of this world who are very smart in their own right but also very adept at self promotion.

      Very adept at self promotion? Have you seen Elon Musk speak? He's a nerd. The quintessential nerd, with a head full of facts and figures and very poor command of his tongue. People lionize him and promote him, then blame him for self promoting, when in fact he's absolutely terrible at actually promoting himself. He talks about ideas and business activities and people call that self promotion. There's very little mention of himself, except when the interviewer inevitably asks, "Why are you doing this?" Then he answers with his, "I think humanity should be a multiplanetary species." That's about the only time he says "I think". The rest of the time, he's busy telling you what his companies are doing, and people somehow interpret that as self promotion.

      As opposed to what a Kardashian is saying, which is somehow.... fine? Humans baffle me.

  3. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If it wern't for the AT&T lawsuits FreeBSD may be the standard for non desktop systems. Linux wasn't really superior, But being it was made without the Unix legal baggage and was free. Allowed for easy adoptions of the OS, because at the time similar OS's from Unix would cost thousands of dollars. And DOS and Windows wasn't up to snuff.

    Being a free OS, it makes it easy to be implemented by a startup into new ideas such as IoT.

    Linux had taken it lead as BSD legality was under consideration. This lead allowed fore more support/drivers and availability.

    Linux was on par with FreeBSD but not superior. Linus needs credit for what he had done, by abandoning Unix source code, but he didn't build a superior system.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  4. Re:Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale ... by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The way I see it, the fact that toasters run any OS in any form is an issue.