[Beowulf] Compute Node OS on Local Disk vs. Ram Disk

[Geoff Jacobs]

stephen mulcahy wrote:
> John Hearns wrote:
>> Hmmmm.... can I forsee Puppy Linux HPC Edition ????
>> http://www.puppylinux.org/
>>  
>>  
>> Being half serious here, is it worth trying to get one of these
>> slimmed-down distros to the state where it will run an HPC job?
>> Oh, and in addition to a barebones install for our contemplative
>> cluster, they have a onebones install which cuts out the GUI (cue more
>> dog puns).
> 
> Is there that much of a difference between Puppy and a minimal Debian
> where you install only the "standard server" task (I understand Puppy is
> a Debian derivative, apologies if this is incorrect)?
> 
> Or am I swinging my Debian swiss-army chainsaw indiscriminately here?
> 
> -stephen
> 

Damn Small (DSL) is, Puppy is not. I believe Puppy is it's own beast.

This is an interesting topic, though. How much difference does shrinking
the size of a kernel build make in improving the performance of a
tightly coupled lockstep algorithm scaled to hundreds, or thousands of
nodes? Anything in the literature which is directly comparable, not just
the ASCI Q paper?

-- 
Geoffrey D. Jacobs