BeoWulf and FreeBSD

[Putchong Uthayopas]

Hi,

I have no doubt whatsoever that FreeBSD is good. Anyway, since Linux
developers are outnumber FreeBSD developers , Linux will keep up better
with new development in OS, hardware, networking, interface card, etc.
Also, you will see rapid increase in acceptance, support, and product of
linux from commercial sector in this coming year. I think that Linux 
is a better choice for long term by these facts also 
not by technical reasons only. That why we never heard much about 
FreeBSD cluster since most of the people who start building new cluster
are likely to choose Linux. 

Since FreeBSD is opensource , you can still call your cluster 
a Beowulf Cluster anyway.(Or should it be "BSDwulf").


Putchong.

PS: Official name of bewoulf  cluster is Beowulf-Class Computing
Systems. (Thomas Sterling, Don Becker told me this in person).


On Fri, 21 May 1999 jakob@ostenfeld.dk wrote:

> On Thu, May 20, 1999 at 03:40:58PM -0700, Ulairi wrote:
> > A newbie here, I plead ignorance from the starts :)
> > 
> > Is there anyone running Beowulf on FreeBSD or knows of any resources with pointers as to how to do it? 
> > How about alternatives to Beowulf that do run on FreeBSD?
> 
> I'm very interested in comparisons between FreeBSD and Linux, wrt. performance.
> 
> The movie ``The Matrix'' had it's special effects rendered on 32 SMP FreeBSD boxes,
> so ofcourse FreeBSD can do cluster computing, and do it well.
> 
> I wanted to try out FreeBSD myself, but because of the lack of software RAID support,
> I didn't want to do it on my own box. And I haven't really come near any other machines
> that where available for messing around with.  But I'll get to it, sooner or later...
> 
> However, I've been talking to some FreeBSD guys, and they where really enthusiastic about
> what FreeBSD could do, how well it did it, and what Linux couldn't do.  What they said
> and the way they said it, make it pretty clear to me that they knew nothing about what
> Linux could and couldn't, and so their ``comparisons'' where ridiculous.
> 
> When a core-team member tells me that FreeBSD is more stable than Linux, and I ask him
> what his background for saying so is, and he tells me that he's ``heard that linux crashes'',
> then I start getting suspicious.
> 
> Anyway, I'm sure FreeBSD does a lot of things right, and does them good too.  The fact that
> it's been developed with the Intel arch. in mind for so long, also suggests that it _could_
> perform really well there.
> 
> If anyone has *real* experience with *both* FreeBSD and Linux, I would be very happy to 
> hear about it. Especially with regards to raw performance (disk I/O, CPU overhead etc.) And 
> I'm sure a lot of other people on this list would too.
> 
> ................................................................
> : jakob@ostenfeld.dtu.dk  : And I see the elder races,         :
> :.........................: putrid forms of man                :
> :   Jakob Østergaard      : See him rise and claim the earth,  :
> :        OZ9ABN           : his downfall is at hand.           :
> :.........................:............{Konkhra}...............:
>