94 Percent of the World's Top 500 Supercomputers Run Linux

A full 469, or 94 percent, of the top 500 supercomputers now run Linux, according to the Top500 November report, compared with 462 in the June edition of the twice-yearly evaluation. Just 457, or 91.4 percent, of the top machines ran Linux a year ago.

Meanwhile, only three of the world's top supercomputers in this latest report -- ranking at No. 132, 165 and 183, respectively -- run Windows, compared with just two in June and one a year ago.

Now supercomps including the world's fastest is where it really matters and shows off Linux and open source capabilities at its very best.

https://www.linux.com/news/enterpri...f-the-worlds-top-500-supercomputers-run-linux

 

Most top supercomputers actually run highly customized versions of what you call "Linux" with several kernel modifications in their own tree that aren't necessarily made available to the public.

 

Naturally. You can't optimize the Windows kernel. You can strip, modify, and optimize the Linux kernel.

 

Huh? I thought the NT kernel was released under a shared source license, that allowed release of the source code to third parties? Not that NT would be a great choice for a supercomputer (AFAIK).

I'm actually kind of surprised that *BSD isn't bigger in supercomputing though. UFS supports huge volumes and files, scalability is reputedly excellent, and hardware support doesn't sound like a problem when you have a multimillion dollar budget.

 

NT kernel does not have any kind of public release licence apart from being part of Windows. There may be shared source agreements with select people/orgs, but they are private and under NDA (microsoft puts talking about contract terms in public a breach of the terms usually).

I think this comes from IBM historically supplying the majority of supercomputers and its well known preference for Linux over BSD, even HP which supplies a smaller proportion also prefers Linux.
99% sure its not for any specific technical reason as even MS can hammer the NT kernel into something suitable for supercomputer use.

Cheers, Nick

 

All have to follow strict GNU guidelines so yes, unless its something thats their own, if its on KERNEL be it security or any other improvements, its out in the open. Such is the nature of open source.

 

It needs to be open only if they decide to distribute.

 

Once they use GNU offerings its the RULE.

 

Then you don't understand "Linux" license.

 

And you do...........you have it confused with M$ license for sure

 

No I didn't, really.

 

By distrubiting the software on supercomputers it should be under released as source. Either way most of it is:

Source: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24823.wss

IBM Watson SuperComputer:

Source: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/..._your_own_watson_jr_in_your_basement7?lang=en

For that matter all that's needed is to add in some open-source tools:

And you have a supercomputer.

More:

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)#Software

 

As x942 points out, using this on a supercomputer likely constitutes distribution.