[Beowulf] RAID for home beowulf

[Tomislav Maric]

Nifty Tom Mitchell wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 04, 2009 at 01:08:27PM +0200, Tomislav Maric wrote:
>> Mark Hahn wrote:
>>>> I've seen Centos mentioned a lot in connection to HPC, am I making a
>>>> mistake with Ubuntu??
>>> distros differ mainly in their desktop decoration.  for actually 
>>> getting cluster-type work done, the distro is as close to irrelevant
>>> as imaginable.  a matter of taste, really.  it's not as if the distros
>>> provide the critical components - they merely repackage the kernel,
>>> libraries, middleware, utilities.  wiring yourself to a distro does
>>> affect when you can or have to upgrade your system, though.
>>>
> 
> An interesting perspective is to have a cluster built
> on the same distro as your desktop because all the 
> work (compile/edit-->a.out) can just run on your cluster.
> If you have a personal bias to having Ubuntu  under your
> fingers and mouse then a cluster based on the same version
> of Ubuntu can make sense.   This can apply to the 32/64 bit
> choice too.
> 
> For this reason alone it can make a lot of sense for a 
> small personal cluster to match the desktop.
> 
> Other distros like RHEL/CentOS/ScientificLinux do have 
> some advantages in things that matter to big groups 
> like kickstart support package management and server specific
> tools and support for the latest higher end hardware.
> For large clusters the personal station biases are all
> over the map for the user community so the compass points 
> to server distros.
> 
> Another perspective is compiler support.   If you have a superior
> compiler for your applications then the cluster distro should be
> "compatible" with the compiler.  Some compilers can improve
> run time by 40% and quickly tip the balance.  Your benchmarks will tell....
> 
> I like Ubuntu because it facilitates my WiFi and graphics support better than
> some others.  It is also quite current in image tools so it is the distro
> I connect my camera to more often than my other systems.  I can also
> ssh into my CentOS boxen to other types of work that do not depend on eye candy.
> 
> 
> 

OK, I guess then Ubuntu will suffice for a 12 node Cluster. :) Anyway,
I'll try it and see. Thanks!

Best regards,
Tomislav