Linux on supercomputers? I have to ask...

dugan · 07-26-2014, 12:37 PM

When you start up Linux and you're not using a bootsplash or anything like that, then you see penguins across the top of the screen. Linux will draw one penguin for each CPU it detects. If Linux detects one CPU, you see one penguin. If it detects two CPUs, you see two penguins. On my hyperthreaded quad core, I see eight penguins.

So:

When you boot up a supercomputer with 120 000 cores, do you see 120 000 penguins on the screen?

What happens when there are more cores than there are pixels on the monitor?

TobiSGD · 07-26-2014, 01:07 PM

Usually are super-computers:
- partitioned in nodes, it is not one machine with 120,000 cores
- not connected to a display

So, when a super computer boots you see nothing. All you might see is how many cores the machine has that you use for administrating/using the super computer, or, if you connect a monitor to one of the nodes, how many cores that specific node has..

frieza · 07-26-2014, 01:10 PM

i'm going to guess no, for several reasons
for one, modern 'supercomputers' are for the most part clusters of individual computing units (which can be comodidty machines), thus the individual 'cores' are not directly attached to a single kernel

secondly, the penguins are only generated if a framebuffer console is being used, which would probably be pointless for a supercomputer for the most part, only the controling unit at the head of the unit would have any GUI installed at all perhaps, or more likely not since work with large computers like that is largely done remotely from a workstation

in short probably the number of penguins would only reflect the number of cores in the management console rather than the overall unit, but that's just speculation, correct me if i'm wront.

jefro · 07-26-2014, 02:02 PM

If one made a massive cored system or even any of a soon to be possible system then it should show a lot of penguins. I don't think the creators of that made room for that many penguins but I'm sure you'd see up to some limit of (maybe) 256 as a guess for command line limit.

Garda · 07-27-2014, 12:19 AM

Basically, what everyone else has said. I'm not an expert, but from my experience using one, supercomputers can probably be thought of as a network of individual computers that share the job of doing computations, rather than one big computer. Although, I don't know how to define and draw that line.

Do BOINC and SETI at home count as supercomputers?

nigelc · 07-27-2014, 05:16 AM

I have eight cores and no penguins. How do you get them to come up?

Code:

18687 user1     39  19  149m  82m   12 R  100  0.3   0:10.09 setiathome_7.01          
18684 user1     39  19  148m  81m   12 R   99  0.3   0:10.02 setiathome_7.01          
18686 user1     39  19 49548  45m 1764 R   99  0.2   0:10.02 astropulse_6.01          
18683 user1     39  19  146m  79m   12 R   98  0.3   0:09.99 setiathome_7.01          
18689 user1     39  19  147m  80m   12 R   98  0.3   0:09.80 setiathome_7.01          
18682 user1     39  19  146m  79m   12 R   97  0.3   0:10.01 setiathome_7.01          
18688 user1     39  19  148m  81m   12 R   94  0.3   0:09.59 setiathome_7.01          
18685 user1     39  19  148m  81m   12 R   93  0.3   0:09.83 setiathome_7.01

gnashley · 07-27-2014, 05:48 AM

You only see the penguin(s) if using the framebuffer.

dugan · 07-27-2014, 01:08 PM

Many distributions use bootsplash (or something similar) to display a distribution specific startup sequence, instead penguins.