Scyld and Red Hat 7

[Stephen Gaudet]

Hello

> On Wed, Jan 31, 2001 at 07:21:15AM -0800, Jag wrote:
> > I noticed that a few days ago Scyld released their first commercial
> > version of their beowulf software.  However, after looking at the files
> > on their ftp site, I noticed that it is still based on Red Hat 6.2.
> > However Red Hat 7.0 has been out for over four months (and thier public
> > beta showing what would be in it for even longer).  Are there any plans
> > to make the Scyld beowulf software become based on something in the Red
> > Hat 7 series as opposed to the Red Hat 6 series?  And if so, when can we
> > expect to see this?
>
> Honestly: why? What is there in RH 7 that I need and that I don't have
> in RH 6.2? RH 6.2 is still fully supported hence there is no reason
> to upgrade, if there isn't anything in RH 7 that really would be an
> improvement for a Beowulf.
>
> There are very good reasons not to upgrade:
> 1. You almost certainly have to purchase again all commercial software
>    that you have installed on the cluster (e.g., Fortran compilers,
>    math libraries, etc.) because the versions that work with RH6.x will
>    not work with glibc-2.2.
> 2. You have to fight with things like xinetd (it took me a full day to
>    get rsh without passwords working and still having access control
>    working with ALL : ALL in /etc/hosts.deny).
>
> The one reason that could make me upgrade is the installation of a 2.4
> kernel. Since RH 7.0 does not have it, there is no reason to upgrade yet.
> If it turns out that the 2.4 kernel is easier to install on a 7.0 system
> then I may go ahead. I definitely would prefer to install the new kernel
> under 6.2 (until now I failed to get a running system: my test box hangs
> after printing the message "booting the kernel ..." to the screen. Any
> ideas? I attribute this to some mistake I have made, not to RH 6.2).

Here's another reason you might be interested in if looking to use large
data sets.

Latest Linux kernel holds appeal for IT

The keepers of the Linux operating system have made improvements to the core
technology that should make it easier to find lost data.
The biggest addition to the release of Linux kernel 2.4.1 is the ReiserFS,
which is a journaling file system. Journaling file systems are key to
operating systems and applications used over extended corporate networks
because they allow administrators to more quickly recover data in the event
of system failure.

full article is available here
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2680223,00.html

Cheers,

Steve Gaudet
    ........
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