On 06/24/2014 02:43 AM, Jonathan Aquilina wrote:
I am just curious as I have recently switched to Gentoo for every day use due to its customizability and how everything is compiled for a particular system. Has anyone used Gentoo in an HPC application?
My entire PhD was done on Gentoo. I started on LFS (linux from scratch), but fairly quickly walked from that due to total lack of upgrade path. Gentoo gives LFS speeds (if not better) with path to upgrade (and a lot of other Gentoo'ers helping keep that upgrade path bleeding edge).
I also discovered a LOT (understatement) of bugs in HPC code in the process. When things are expecting GCC 3.x and you force them through 4.7, they tend to kick and scream. And C is strangely the best case. C++ compilers are just absurd in their changes as releases increment.
So, unless you are the end-all-be-all in the use-case like I was for my PhD (my cluster/hardware/network, my software, my Gentoo build, my kernel configs, etc), I would sadly be forced to say Gentoo is a bad choice for general HPC builds. Too few people fully understand and appreciate it, and far more are going to be pissed about how their old and crusty release of whatever isn't available 8 years after it came out just because they have to keep their similarly old/crusty/broken academic code-mess up-to-date. Enough boo-hooing does beat rationality here.
Just my hyper-cynical 2c though, ellis _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
