[Beowulf] best linux distribution

[Gerry Creager]

Buccaneer for Hire. wrote:
> --- Mike Davis <jmdavis1 at vcu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> I don't see this as a problem in a production
>> cluster. The fact is that 
>> I've been doing this stuff for a little over two
>> decades and I can build 
>> anything that I need for an application. For me a
>> manual library build 
>> for CentOs 3 is easier than trying to find support
>> for FC4 or 
>> reinstalling FC 1x per year. My CentOs 3 nodes have
>> had less than 2hours 
>> downtime in 2 years and that was due to a Power
>> Upgrade at their 
>> location, that required a complete shutdown of all
>> machines on the floor.
>>
>> Now I should say, that I don't use diskless nodes,
>> each node has its own 
>> OS disk and most have a separate /tmp disk for
>> scratch use. That is one 
>> reason that we differ on OS, I believe.
> 
> You should use what works best for you.
> 
> But, building software on RHEL/CentOS is way more
> difficult for the most part than building software
> under Fedora.  That's the difference between ~1200
> programs and thousands of programs in a distro. 

I've had very little difficulty building programs under CentOS, all in 
all.  In fact, lately, I've had problems with Fedora, as it is close to 
bleeding edge, but the Centos stuff just works.  I may not be able to do 
it with native RPMs, but I still remember how to drive a compiler, too.

gerry
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
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