14 ms·

Linux Runs All of the World’s Fastest Supercomputers

118 points by okket 9y ago

madez 9y ago
I wonder if the linux foundation lobbied in Munich for Limux. I'm well aware that the issue wasn't the windows kernel vs the linux kernel, but does that matter for the public perception? For Max Mustermann, Linux lost in Munich. Edit: Just for clarification, I didn't mean to suggest that the linux foundation did lobby. I just wonder if they were thinking about it, and what their decision was.
- duderino 9y ago
  Why not BSD? Could BSD be utilized for a supercomputer?
  - dnautics 9y ago
    This was addressed in previous hn discussion and it boils down to specialized support for certain HPC hardware. I think that also not having a focus on scientific software probably also hurts.
bearbearbear 9y ago
A majority of the world's "supercomputers" are just dick waving money drops where some government or organization slapped a thousand blades into a rack and called it a day so they could say they have "the biggest supercomputer." There's no legal definition of what a "supercomputer" is. Shit, my iPhone could be considered a "supercomputer." It can do millions of calculations per second.
CodeWriter23 9y ago
Does that mean they’re in for a nice upgrade by applying this patch? https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/04/26/the-linux-scheduler-a-decade-of-wasted-cores/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/04/26/the-linux-scheduler-a-de...
- Fnoord 9y ago
  This article is from ~april 2016, the last commit was on may 2016 [1] [1] https://github.com/jplozi/wastedcores https://github.com/jplozi/wastedcores
gbrown_ 9y ago
Whilst it seems it is possible for the compute nodes of a Blue Gene to run Linux [1], I doubt all of them are doing so in the Top 500 and that most still run IBM's CNK. [1] http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4453.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4453.pdf
- nigwil_ 9y ago
  You are correct, the compute nodes run CNK. BG/Q has a few Power7 servers running Red Hat that run the cluster control, job scheduler etc
doener 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15707800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15707800
kev009 9y ago
There are a lot of people gloating about this on Twitter and elsewhere, but to me it just seems sad; the ultimate morass of monoculture and an endgame with no competition. An ode to "the OS layer no longer matters, don't bother putting any effort into it someone else will". Bystander paradox. I know Linux fans don't see it that way.. young me thought Linux was indomitable and it was foolish for any company and group of people to not invest all their time and efforts into it. Older me knows better, that's not how corporations and groups of people work best. It leads to stagnation and apathy. It kills the fertile ground for ideas needed to make non-linear progression. I don't know the solution to all this, but systems software is really going the way electronics engineering and circuit design have gone. I am sure executive types without engineering background would love to "outsource" it all to the perceived interchangeable cogs in "low cost regions".. but the rate of technological progress is about to drop of a cliff if my generation doesn't pick up the torch real soon now. That said, it is somewhat premature as another commentator points out IBM's CNK. CNK is inventor's thinking.. the gall to ask "do we even need a general purpose OS?" regardless of what the market or eventual answer may be.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >> There are a lot of people gloating about this on Twitter and elsewhere, but to me it just seems sad; the ultimate morass of monoculture and an endgame with no competition. An ode to "the OS layer no longer matters, don't bother putting any effort into it someone else will". Bystander paradox. >>I know Linux fans don't see it that way.. I am not a Linux fan per se (as I type this from my Win10 desktop), but I legitimately don't understand what your comment is about. I've read it a few times and I'm still not exactly sure what you are complaining about. How is Linux a monoculture, or this the endgame... or this stagnation? I can't figure out what you are saying, sorry.
  - Joeri 9y ago
    The linux kernel has a certain architecture which informs the design of every OS built on top of it. There is effectively no competition of core OS architecture ideas anymore because linux won. Now, linux won because it was better, but is it really the right OS architecture for the 3d xpoint / quantum-mechanical hardware stack of the future? The monoculture makes it harder for people to experiment, and slows down discontinuous innovation in OS design. Or, just imagine microsoft won and you substitute windows for linux in this thought exercise. Wouldn’t that be a problem for innovation?
fh973 9y ago
I sometimes wonder: what will happen to Linux when there is no Linus Torvalds as a lead architect anymore? I just have an outsider perspective, but it seems that he still has to intervene every now and then to maintain a coherent architecture. Could anyone else fill this role, ie. be willing, able and empowered?
- qznc 9y ago
  I believe the general philosophy (never break user space) is deeply ingrained into all long term kernel devs. There is a possibility that Linux splits into multiple variants (server, supercomputer, desktop, embedded, ...), but as long as the licences are compatible I see no problem.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Hardly. Just the other day there was a spat between a security guy and Torvalds, where the security guy wanted to push a patch set that would crash even the kernel if something in userspace made it do something "funny". And said security guy have a whole bunch of cheerleaders in userspace (quite a few stepped onto social media to defend the patch set and berate Torvalds for being a potty mouthed bully), and perhaps even a few in kernel space.
  - gnufx 9y ago
    I've seen enough break in user space in an HPC context. Note that HPC communication needs to happen there.
- PleaseHelpMe 9y ago
  Here is an interesting article : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/17/now_i_can_die_happy_what_linus_didnt_iquitei_say/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/17/now_i_can_die_happy_...
- craigsmansion 9y ago
  Nothing much would happen, really. As portrayed by tech-media Linus is the main man behind Linux, but for anyone who would even casually follow the LKML, "Linux" is merely Linus' Linux. If Linus were to cease development, distributions would probably gravitate towards another Linux tree. There is no shortage of trees maintained by very qualified long-term developers who are trusted to keep everything in working order. They're just not as much in the general spotlight as Linus. Even if different distributors would lean towards different trees, features and patches would be equalised by third parties and another main tree would establish itself as "Linux."
goldfeld 9y ago
What'd a supercomputer ever want Windows or OSX layers on for? Linux is too obvious.
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  You're forgetting Unix / BSD variants which can be quite competitive in their own respect as well.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    I still miss the days where Yahoo! was a FreeBSD shop. I think the conversion to Linux was a bad idea on several levels and was motivated by the wrong reasons. And I have been a heavy Linux user since 1995 (used it from 1993, but didn’t use it heavily till 1995), yet still feel that way.
hsnewman 9y ago
Well, with the Intel ME recent findings, actually Minix is on all of those computers as well as any other modern Intel based computer...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tomrod 9y ago
Now if we Linux users could just get some first-class gaming support!
jdblair 9y ago
> Since its release 26 years ago, Linux has not only persisted–it has come to dominate every market it enters. Except the mainstream desktop. Linux has not dominated the desktop, nor do I expect it ever will, at least not the desktop in its current form. (I remember back in 1999 I would tell people that Linux would eventually rule the desktop, we just had to take a long view of at least 10 years. I can now say empirically that 10 years is not a long enough view.)
- pimeys 9y ago
  While desktop market is dead and Linux will not be mainstream in that market, it is an excellent choice as a developer desktop. Fast, super easy to install everywhere and has the best possible packaging systems to get all the software you need. If choosing the right distro, you don't need yearly updates that break your tools or a credit card to use the proprietary app store for certain libraries needed for your open source pipeline. I'm not saying it's perfect, but in 2017 and being a developer, I'd take a serious look how nice of an OS it actually is.
  - jdblair 9y ago
    No argument here. I've been using Linux as a developer system since about 1996.
    - pimeys 9y ago
      Around 1997 for me. Redhat 5.0 was my first distro, if I remember correctly...
- digi_owl 9y ago
  I wonder how much of that is technical, and how much of that is dirty play from the gorilla of the market.
  - jdblair 9y ago
    I used to blame monopolistic tactics by Microsoft. There's no doubt that shrewd business moves a big reason for the success of Windows. However, the high quality of Windows developer tools as well as the fragmentation of the Linux desktop (just like the Unix world before it) also both played a huge part.
gnufx 9y ago
The article is misleading in more ways than ignoring what the BG/Qs run and the contentious claim that Linux is "the right match", whatever "supercomputing" means. The term is devalued in this context. Nearly the list is not HPC systems in the sense that they could usefully run quantum chemistry at scale; dismiss the Ethernet ones. The HPL number is acknowledged as bad, even by the standard of single performance numbers. It basically reflects the number and width of the vector units and use of a good BLAS. https://hpgmg.org/ https://hpgmg.org/ seems a better choice if you must have a single HPC benchmark number. (HPCG, touted to replace HPL, depends on how you re-write it, which you must to avoid essentially STREAM results.) It's also worth pointing out that much of the capacity there isn't even on an OS kernel, but is off-loaded, and I wonder what multiple entries for "service provider x" actually are as "systems".

118 points by okket 9y ago

I wonder if the linux foundation lobbied in Munich for Limux. I'm well aware that the issue wasn't the windows kernel vs the linux kernel, but does that matter for the public perception? For Max Mustermann, Linux lost in Munich. Edit: Just for clarification, I didn't mean to suggest that the linux foundation did lobby. I just wonder if they were thinking about it, and what their decision was.

duderino 9y ago
Why not BSD? Could BSD be utilized for a supercomputer?
- dnautics 9y ago
  This was addressed in previous hn discussion and it boils down to specialized support for certain HPC hardware. I think that also not having a focus on scientific software probably also hurts.

bearbearbear 9y ago

A majority of the world's "supercomputers" are just dick waving money drops where some government or organization slapped a thousand blades into a rack and called it a day so they could say they have "the biggest supercomputer." There's no legal definition of what a "supercomputer" is. Shit, my iPhone could be considered a "supercomputer." It can do millions of calculations per second.

CodeWriter23 9y ago

Does that mean they’re in for a nice upgrade by applying this patch? https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/04/26/the-linux-scheduler-a-decade-of-wasted-cores/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2016/04/26/the-linux-scheduler-a-de...

Fnoord 9y ago
This article is from ~april 2016, the last commit was on may 2016 [1] [1] https://github.com/jplozi/wastedcores https://github.com/jplozi/wastedcores

gbrown_ 9y ago

Whilst it seems it is possible for the compute nodes of a Blue Gene to run Linux [1], I doubt all of them are doing so in the Top 500 and that most still run IBM's CNK. [1] http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4453.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4453.pdf

nigwil_ 9y ago
You are correct, the compute nodes run CNK. BG/Q has a few Power7 servers running Red Hat that run the cluster control, job scheduler etc

doener 9y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15707800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15707800

kev009 9y ago

There are a lot of people gloating about this on Twitter and elsewhere, but to me it just seems sad; the ultimate morass of monoculture and an endgame with no competition. An ode to "the OS layer no longer matters, don't bother putting any effort into it someone else will". Bystander paradox. I know Linux fans don't see it that way.. young me thought Linux was indomitable and it was foolish for any company and group of people to not invest all their time and efforts into it. Older me knows better, that's not how corporations and groups of people work best. It leads to stagnation and apathy. It kills the fertile ground for ideas needed to make non-linear progression. I don't know the solution to all this, but systems software is really going the way electronics engineering and circuit design have gone. I am sure executive types without engineering background would love to "outsource" it all to the perceived interchangeable cogs in "low cost regions".. but the rate of technological progress is about to drop of a cliff if my generation doesn't pick up the torch real soon now. That said, it is somewhat premature as another commentator points out IBM's CNK. CNK is inventor's thinking.. the gall to ask "do we even need a general purpose OS?" regardless of what the market or eventual answer may be.

icelancer 9y ago
>> There are a lot of people gloating about this on Twitter and elsewhere, but to me it just seems sad; the ultimate morass of monoculture and an endgame with no competition. An ode to "the OS layer no longer matters, don't bother putting any effort into it someone else will". Bystander paradox. >>I know Linux fans don't see it that way.. I am not a Linux fan per se (as I type this from my Win10 desktop), but I legitimately don't understand what your comment is about. I've read it a few times and I'm still not exactly sure what you are complaining about. How is Linux a monoculture, or this the endgame... or this stagnation? I can't figure out what you are saying, sorry.
- Joeri 9y ago
  The linux kernel has a certain architecture which informs the design of every OS built on top of it. There is effectively no competition of core OS architecture ideas anymore because linux won. Now, linux won because it was better, but is it really the right OS architecture for the 3d xpoint / quantum-mechanical hardware stack of the future? The monoculture makes it harder for people to experiment, and slows down discontinuous innovation in OS design. Or, just imagine microsoft won and you substitute windows for linux in this thought exercise. Wouldn’t that be a problem for innovation?

fh973 9y ago

I sometimes wonder: what will happen to Linux when there is no Linus Torvalds as a lead architect anymore? I just have an outsider perspective, but it seems that he still has to intervene every now and then to maintain a coherent architecture. Could anyone else fill this role, ie. be willing, able and empowered?

qznc 9y ago
I believe the general philosophy (never break user space) is deeply ingrained into all long term kernel devs. There is a possibility that Linux splits into multiple variants (server, supercomputer, desktop, embedded, ...), but as long as the licences are compatible I see no problem.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Hardly. Just the other day there was a spat between a security guy and Torvalds, where the security guy wanted to push a patch set that would crash even the kernel if something in userspace made it do something "funny". And said security guy have a whole bunch of cheerleaders in userspace (quite a few stepped onto social media to defend the patch set and berate Torvalds for being a potty mouthed bully), and perhaps even a few in kernel space.
- gnufx 9y ago
  I've seen enough break in user space in an HPC context. Note that HPC communication needs to happen there.
PleaseHelpMe 9y ago
Here is an interesting article : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/17/now_i_can_die_happy_what_linus_didnt_iquitei_say/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/17/now_i_can_die_happy_...
craigsmansion 9y ago
Nothing much would happen, really. As portrayed by tech-media Linus is the main man behind Linux, but for anyone who would even casually follow the LKML, "Linux" is merely Linus' Linux. If Linus were to cease development, distributions would probably gravitate towards another Linux tree. There is no shortage of trees maintained by very qualified long-term developers who are trusted to keep everything in working order. They're just not as much in the general spotlight as Linus. Even if different distributors would lean towards different trees, features and patches would be equalised by third parties and another main tree would establish itself as "Linux."

goldfeld 9y ago

What'd a supercomputer ever want Windows or OSX layers on for? Linux is too obvious.

giancarlostoro 9y ago
You're forgetting Unix / BSD variants which can be quite competitive in their own respect as well.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  I still miss the days where Yahoo! was a FreeBSD shop. I think the conversion to Linux was a bad idea on several levels and was motivated by the wrong reasons. And I have been a heavy Linux user since 1995 (used it from 1993, but didn’t use it heavily till 1995), yet still feel that way.

hsnewman 9y ago

Well, with the Intel ME recent findings, actually Minix is on all of those computers as well as any other modern Intel based computer...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tomrod 9y ago

Now if we Linux users could just get some first-class gaming support!

jdblair 9y ago

> Since its release 26 years ago, Linux has not only persisted–it has come to dominate every market it enters. Except the mainstream desktop. Linux has not dominated the desktop, nor do I expect it ever will, at least not the desktop in its current form. (I remember back in 1999 I would tell people that Linux would eventually rule the desktop, we just had to take a long view of at least 10 years. I can now say empirically that 10 years is not a long enough view.)

pimeys 9y ago
While desktop market is dead and Linux will not be mainstream in that market, it is an excellent choice as a developer desktop. Fast, super easy to install everywhere and has the best possible packaging systems to get all the software you need. If choosing the right distro, you don't need yearly updates that break your tools or a credit card to use the proprietary app store for certain libraries needed for your open source pipeline. I'm not saying it's perfect, but in 2017 and being a developer, I'd take a serious look how nice of an OS it actually is.
- jdblair 9y ago
  No argument here. I've been using Linux as a developer system since about 1996.
  - pimeys 9y ago
    Around 1997 for me. Redhat 5.0 was my first distro, if I remember correctly...
digi_owl 9y ago
I wonder how much of that is technical, and how much of that is dirty play from the gorilla of the market.
- jdblair 9y ago
  I used to blame monopolistic tactics by Microsoft. There's no doubt that shrewd business moves a big reason for the success of Windows. However, the high quality of Windows developer tools as well as the fragmentation of the Linux desktop (just like the Unix world before it) also both played a huge part.

gnufx 9y ago

The article is misleading in more ways than ignoring what the BG/Qs run and the contentious claim that Linux is "the right match", whatever "supercomputing" means. The term is devalued in this context. Nearly the list is not HPC systems in the sense that they could usefully run quantum chemistry at scale; dismiss the Ethernet ones. The HPL number is acknowledged as bad, even by the standard of single performance numbers. It basically reflects the number and width of the vector units and use of a good BLAS. https://hpgmg.org/ https://hpgmg.org/ seems a better choice if you must have a single HPC benchmark number. (HPCG, touted to replace HPL, depends on how you re-write it, which you must to avoid essentially STREAM results.) It's also worth pointing out that much of the capacity there isn't even on an OS kernel, but is off-loaded, and I wonder what multiple entries for "service provider x" actually are as "systems".