[Beowulf] [External] Re: apline linux [EXT]

[Prentice Bisbal]

I don't think the RAM footprint of a properly configured Linux OS is 
much of a concern on a compute node these days.  And by properly 
configured I mean unnecessary packages are not installed, and 
unnecessary services are not started in the first place. When I 
configure an OS install for a cluster, I go through every package 
one-at-a-time and determine whether or not I need it on a cluster node.

A bigger concern would be being able to disable as many unnecessary 
resources as possible to reduce OS overhead and therefore reduce 'OS 
jitter' in job performance. It amazes me with each new version of a 
distro how many more services seem to need to be running that you can't 
easily remove.

Prentice

On 2/1/21 9:46 AM, Jonathan Aquilina via Beowulf wrote:
>
> Hi Tim,
>
> I am asking from the non container side. If one wants to go bare metal 
> wouldn’t that lower ram footprint that alpine provides be advantageous 
> so you can maximize resource usage for what you want to crunch?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jonathan
>
> *From:*Tim Cutts <tjrc at sanger.ac.uk>
> *Sent:* 01 February 2021 15:43
> *To:* Jonathan Aquilina <jaquilina at eagleeyet.net>
> *Cc:* Beowulf <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Beowulf] apline linux [EXT]
>
> The only place I regularly encounter is in containers, so people who 
> are running singularity might find their users are using alpine in a 
> way they can’t easily see.  Presumably the libm point Janne made 
> applies in the container context as well, since the application will 
> presumably be using the container’s libm, not the host node’s library.
>
> Tim
>
>
>
>     On 30 Jan 2021, at 05:56, Jonathan Aquilina via Beowulf
>     <beowulf at beowulf.org <mailto:beowulf at beowulf.org>> wrote:
>
>     Hey guys,
>
>     Recently been giving alpine linux a try. I am super impressed on
>     virtualized version of it what a low ram footprint it has 60mb
>     starting. What do you guys think when it comes to alpine linux in
>     the HPC space?
>
>     Regards,
>
>     Jonathan
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Beowulf mailing list,Beowulf at beowulf.org
>     <mailto:Beowulf at beowulf.org>sponsored by Penguin Computing
>     To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe)
>     visithttps://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__beowulf.org_cgi-2Dbin_mailman_listinfo_beowulf&d=DwICAg&c=D7ByGjS34AllFgecYw0iC6Zq7qlm8uclZFI0SqQnqBo&r=gSesY1AbeTURZwExR_OGFZlp9YUzrLWyYpGmwAw4Q50&m=k_QXQ5VMTqsc46RivJoRKsv3-qKbVEVhs9N9jZy-Myc&s=98F3h1exjDbPRlv7rG0Aqry9txEvhut_Ujq46FeA-5s&e=
>     <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__beowulf.org_cgi-2Dbin_mailman_listinfo_beowulf&d=DwICAg&c=D7ByGjS34AllFgecYw0iC6Zq7qlm8uclZFI0SqQnqBo&r=gSesY1AbeTURZwExR_OGFZlp9YUzrLWyYpGmwAw4Q50&m=k_QXQ5VMTqsc46RivJoRKsv3-qKbVEVhs9N9jZy-Myc&s=98F3h1exjDbPRlv7rG0Aqry9txEvhut_Ujq46FeA-5s&e=>
>
> -- The Wellcome Sanger Institute is operated by Genome Research 
> Limited, a charity registered in England with number 1021457 and a 
> company registered in England with number 2742969, whose registered 
> office is 215 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing
> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit https://beowulf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beowulf

-- 
Prentice Bisbal
Lead Software Engineer
Research Computing
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
http://www.pppl.gov

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://beowulf.org/pipermail/beowulf/attachments/20210201/82876d12/attachment.htm>