On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 08:03:36AM +0100, Loris Bennett wrote: > Stuart Barkley <sa...@4gh.net> writes: > > > I think some places are moving to Ubuntu. The thought is that Ubuntu > > keeps more up to date with software. I preferred to keep the OS > > minimal and build the user software independently since there usually > > were complex dependencies and Debian should be fine in that case. > > <snip> > > > > On January 6, 2024 4:04:51 PM UTC, "Andrew M.A. Cater" > > <amaca...@einval.com> wrote: > >>Michael: This discussion has also been taking place periodically in > >>the main Beowulf lists over at Beowulf.org (https://www.beowulf.org) > >> > >>See, for example, their archives from May-November 2023 for the thread. > >> > >>For anyone interested in HPC, I commend the Beowulf list - very small > >>numbers of extremely motivated, extremely competent people. > >> > >>(amaca...@debian.org) <snip> > Thanks for the info - I'll have a look at the beowulf.org list. > > Personally I can't see Ubuntu being a viable option. For HPC I don't > see any advantage regarding software relative to Debian. >
As ever, it depends. It also depends on the vendor who made your HPC if you bought it from somewhere like HPE/Cray. The secret sauce is in the detail of interconnects and device drivers: Canonical is a commercial company and can afford to deal with NDA / special terms and conditions or whatever it takes to get an Ubuntu system running well on HPC - it can build closed-source modules if need be. If you're in academia, then the fact that Ubuntu has the PPA system to install latest/greatest/(maybe broken) software that's newer than stable versions might be useful - some astrophysicist programmer somewhere publishes his program as a PPA so you *need* Ubuntu. Also: an HPC is an expensive beast - accountants want someone to sue if it melts :) Ironically, maybe the one thing you don't need is paid distro support because you have your own sysadmin/programmers sitting running the thing and when you ring $Big_commercial_distro with a problem, they don't know HPC. Andy (amaca...@debian.org) (who has been interested from the sidelines in HPC for many years - I could probably play a sysadmin on TV :) ) > Cheers, > > Loris > > -- > Dr. Loris Bennett (Herr/Mr) > FUB-IT (ex-ZEDAT), Freie Universität Berlin >
