[Beowulf] Building new cluster - estimate

[stephen mulcahy]

Bill Broadley wrote:
> In general I'd say that the new kernels do much better on modern 
> hardware than the ugly situation of downloading a random RPM, or waiting 
> for official support.  Seems like quite a few companies (ati, 3ware, 
> areca, intel, amd, and many others I'm sure) are trying hard to improve 
> the mainline kernel drivers.
> 
> I understand why RHEL doesn't change the kernel (stability, testing, 
> etc.), but not sure it's the best fit for HPC type applications, 
> especially with the pace of hardware changes these days.

Hi Bill,

My take on recent (2.6.x) mainline kernels was that there isn't as clear 
a distinction between production quality and developer quality kernels 
these days as there used to be in the previous even/odd 
production/developer kernels. From scanning the kernel releases, it 
looks like you'd want to stay a minor revision or two behind the 
bleeding edge if you want some stability.

Has this been your experience or do you have extensive test facilities 
before rolling out mainline kernels onto production systems?

Thanks,

-stephen

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Stephen Mulcahy, Applepie Solutions Ltd., Innovation in Business Center,
GMIT, Dublin Rd, Galway, Ireland.  +353.91.751262  http://www.aplpi.com
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