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Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by 8fingerlouie on Thursday November 16, 2017 @06:04AM (#15711755)
Some will say better hardware support. While Linux has better hardware support, i usually find this to be in the more exotic direction.

I think it's simply down to Linux being where the money is. The big players (IBM, Dell, etc) are all actively promoting Linux, and trained personel is also somewhat easy to find. So Linux is "the beast you know".

As for FreeBSD, it might be a technically better platform, but it is living in Linux' shadow.

Personally i run FreeBSD for the excellent documentation, stability, features like ZFS, but nothing i run couldn't just as easily run on Linux.

Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by alvil on Thursday November 16, 2017 @06:22AM (#15711830)
> While Linux has better hardware support

Linux has wider, not better hardware support. If OpenBSD supports some hardware it simply works out of the box and is stable and rock solid.

Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by scardine on Thursday November 16, 2017 @07:30AM (#15712134)
From the famous poster hanging on Facebook's office:

"Done is better than perfect".

Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by ska on Thursday November 16, 2017 @09:20AM (#15712747)

  While Linux has better hardware support, i usually find this to be in the more exotic direction.
HPC, and supercomputing in specific, tends to the exotic (particularly with busses)
Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by jo909 on Thursday November 16, 2017 @09:05AM (#15712658)
And hardware support does not only mean that it "somehow" works, but that the hardware vendor and the operating system vendor have certified this combination and will support you with all your problems for many many years.

Edit: support as in commercial support with SLA etc

Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by aeorgnoieang on Thursday November 16, 2017 @11:52AM (#15714193)
> features like ZFS

Linux has ZFS.

Re:Ask HN: Why are supercomputers all running Linux and not ... by wolrah on Thursday November 16, 2017 @01:22PM (#15715105)
> Linux has ZFS.

Kind of.

You have the choice of the FUSE version that's legally free and clear but has obvious FUSE related performance limitations, or the kernel version which has great performance but is questionable at best from a legal standpoint because the CDDL is not compatible with the GPL.

Canonical has decided they're willing to take the risk by bundling it in Ubuntu and so far it hasn't backfired on them, but there's good reason to believe that Oracle's lawyers may have something to say about it if they ever feel that ZFS-on-Linux is threatening any of their products.