[Beowulf] Gentoo in the HPC environment

[Mark Hahn]

> due to its customizability and how everything is compiled for a particular
> system.  Has anyone used Gentoo in an HPC application?

not so much, I suspect.  at my org, we have our hands full dealing 
with slow-changing distros like centos.  what would really be interesting
is if someone could show a tangible benefit to the compile-from-scratch
approach - a measurable and consistent improvement in some applications' 
performances, for instance.

for single-purpose facilities, it might make a lot of sense.  certainly
mechanisms like environment modules would be asinine in that context.

I do often wonder how much our systems are pessimized by conservative
compilation, especially the use of PIC (by way of shared libraries)
and avoidance of LTO.

regards, mark hahn.