From: ig25@fg30.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig) Subject: Re: Is Linux a viable OS for a stable multiuser unix system, not just a hobbiest's Unix box? Date: 9 Feb 1993 21:48:48 GMT
ibe1109@draper.com (Ira Ekhaus) writes:
>I'm interested in setting up a Unix box for a few researchers. It
>would be doing some fairly light computing (by scientific computing
>standards).
What is light? How many megs of ram do you expect to need, and how
many megs of data do you expect to generate?
>I'm trying to determine the tradeoffs between
>The lower cost of *86 boxes compared to sparc's.
>vs
>the delays and distractions that an unstable operating system would
>provide.
Depends. I'd say (personal experience) that Linux is stable enough for
lightweight scientific stuff. Where it misses out is on the
availability of commercial software like the NAG libs, Maple, ... etc.
Of course, if a copy of Numerical Recipies is enough for your numerical
needs, you're fine. F2c, while being far from great (especially because
of difficult source - level debugging) does a reasonable job at
compiling even fairly largish portions of FORTRAN code. Oh, and just
wait until I've uploaded fudgit to tsx-11 (should happen in the next few
days :-)
Always keeping up to date is work, sure, but it's not too bad if
your box happens to be connected to the Internet.
>As the prospective system gets bigger the relative cost of the CPU
>becomes less of an issue (peripherals costing the same on both systems
>) and I believe the SPARC workstation wins out.
Depends... if your applications require > 16 Meg real RAM and SCSI
drivers, go for the SPARC. If you are going to add gigabyte storage,
use the SPARC as woll. If your plans are not as ambitious, I'd say
Linux is a viable alternative.
>But for a low capital interim solution Linux might work because
> 1) the code I'd write would be unix generic
> 2) the 486 box is already there and
> 3) at the very least the 486 box would make
> a good Xterm (using linux of course).
Those three arguments certainly count, if nothing else does :-)
>Has anyone else considered these tradeoffs?
Yep... I have :-)
-- Thomas Koenig, ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic diagram.