Re: RedHat or Debian amd64

[Francesco Pietra <chiendarret@gmail.com>]

Hi Lennart:
I forgot that what is found on supercomputers might result also from what you say.

I found it problematic to compile a code for molecular dynamics (MD) inclusive of an elaborate plugin. Better, I succeeded when only the simplest part of the plugin was implemented, getting a valid MD executable. In contrast, implementing the whole plugin resulted in a MD executable that fails to recognize the GTX-680cards of my machine. Calls to the forum for both the MD code and the plugin had ho answer. Those of the MD code do not like the plugin (as they have the simplest part of it already hard coded their own way), while those of the plugin do not know that MD code, they use another one.

Then, I heard that at the supercomputer center of my country (where I should run the project, but I need to go there with a system that "runs") even GPU machines run that full plugin. Before asking them how they succeeded, I was wondering about the different Linux OSs. I am now curious about their answer, if any.

thanks and all the best
francesco pietra

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 04:33:20PM +0200, Francesco Pietra wrote:
> Hello:
> I noticed that in my country supercomputer center all machines, both CPU
> (FERMI) and GPU (AURORA, PLX) run on RedHat Linux. As a long time user of
> Debian GNU Linux amd64, I am curious whether such machines elsewhere also
> run, or could run, on Debian am64. If not, why? A problem of kernel?

Some people want someone to blame if there are problems, or to demand
support from if they need something solved right away.  Redhat will sell
you support contracts and will solve problems.  But you pay for it.

If you like doing it yourself or to solve things by cooporating with
the community instead, then Debian works great.

I certainly have the impression that locations that have their own IT
people that understand the system and want to be in control of their
own situation tend to run Debian (or a Debian derived system), while
those that just want things solved and don't care to have the expertise
themselves tend to run Redhat enterprise linux instead.  After all if
you have the people and a large installation, the support contract with
redhat could pay for a lot of competent IT staff.

--
Len Sorensen