[Beowulf] Alpha beowulf: True64 or Linux?

[Mark Hahn]

> I've heard of people making clusters out of Alphas running Linux before - 
> can't remember where, but I did see someone had done it.

my organization did (and does, actually).  we had several clusters of 
ES40's, most running linux.  one (which I admined) ran tru64.
we've since coalesced all the ES40's into one cluster, which we still
run (under linux).

tru64 is about what you'd expect: obsolete in many ways compared to
fast-moving linux.  but at the time, advfs was pretty nice in being able 
to add storage pools together vaguely like zfs.

> So I'd be tempted to say don't bother with an Alphaserver cluster at all any 
> more, but if you are going to have one, it can be made to work with either 
> OS.

our ES40's (4G, 4cpus, elan3) still get used reasonably well,
and are fairly stable.  but in the academic environment, we don't pay
for space or power, so they're pretty close to zero cost.  if we thought
we could get anything for them, we'd consider ebay'ing them and buying
modern hardware...