[Beowulf] building Infiniband 4x cluster questions

[Jon Tegner]

>>> DRIVERS:
>>> Drivers for cards now. Are those all open source, or does it require
>>> payment? Is the source released of all those cards drivers, and do
>>> they integrate into linux?
>> You should get everything you need from the Linux kernel and / or OFED.
>
> You can also find the drivers on the vendors sites. Not sure about the rest, but for the Mellanox case it is open source and free - both for Linux and Windows
>
>
I'm using Qlogic drivers, it works well, but has the drawback that I'm 
limited to the kernel required for those drivers (which since I'm using 
CentOS means that I can only use CentOS-5.5).

Would there be any disadvantages involved in instead use the stuff from 
the kernel/OFED directly?

Regards,

/jon