[Beowulf] first cluster

[Douglas Guptill]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2010 at 02:19:53PM -0400, Mark Hahn wrote:
>>  Debian (lenny)
>
> why?  centos is generally considered the safest choice,
> unless you're religiously committed to debian.

Almost religiously.  I have found it a very stable platform for
everything up to clusters.  If Debian fails to do the job, CentoOS is
my backup plan.

>>  + fai                   - for compute-node operating system install
>
> do you explicitly want a diskful install?  I think there's pretty wide 
> consensus that nfs root (or at least net-loaded ram image) clusters are 
> better.

Thank you for that opinion, which is new to me.  

I believe fai can do a variety of install-types, including diskful,
and nfs root.  But then, I am still in the planning stage, and have no
practical experience.

Thanks,
Douglas.
-- 
  Douglas Guptill                       voice: 902-461-9749
  Research Assistant, LSC 4640          email: douglas.guptill at dal.ca
  Oceanography Department               fax:   902-494-3877
  Dalhousie University
  Halifax, NS, B3H 4J1, Canada