According to the Spiral (Mar 22 2012)

lol is ? or isn't ?

to be or not to be ?
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Good point, and agreed. We're also still using apache while it seems the world is moving toward nginx (I've been looking into switching at some point, if I can determine it's worth it). So yes there's some non-optimal situations in general here, and maybe others that arise sticking with Fedora... but we kind of need the bleeding edge for BOINC/SETI@home software development purposes, and don't have the management overhead to deal with multiple OS flavors. I know it sounds wimpy not wanted to deal with multiple linuxes but it actually is a real pain. Plus most of our problems with linux are kernel-related, not linux-flavor-related.

- Matt

Thanks for the update, but...

I sometimes wonder how big corporations manage to have such great uptime when we keep hitting fundamental flaws with linux getting locked up under heavy load. I think the answers are they (a) have massive redundancy (whereas we generally have very little mostly due to lack of physical space and available power), (b) have far more manpower (on 24 hour call) to kick machines immediately when they lock up, and (c) are under-utilizing servers (whereas we generally tend to push everything to their limits until they break).

(d) For their production servers they don't choose Fedora, which is meant for desktops, really. (Too bleeding edge software, also many experimental bells and whistles turned on in their compiled kernel!).

Just a FYI for those interested, the 5 replacement drives arrived at SETI today and all tested out okay.
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Executive Director GPU Users Group Inc. -
brad@gpuug.org

CERN is using Scientific Linux on their programs, which is Red Hat plus some scientific libraries. I am seeing them run in the BOINC_VM window at Test4Theory@home and it seems very stable, also using very little RAM (256 MB), while my Solaris Virtual Machine needs 1.5 GB RAM just to run SETI@home.
Tullio

I love these details about the server upgrades. Keep us updated. :-)
Thanks!

(5 out of 24 drives is a LOT, I feel your pain there... I'd have expected 2 duds maximum out of that number, and maybe a third within 6 months)

-Dave

Thanks for the update, but...

I sometimes wonder how big corporations manage to have such great uptime when we keep hitting fundamental flaws with linux getting locked up under heavy load. I think the answers are they (a) have massive redundancy (whereas we generally have very little mostly due to lack of physical space and available power), (b) have far more manpower (on 24 hour call) to kick machines immediately when they lock up, and (c) are under-utilizing servers (whereas we generally tend to push everything to their limits until they break).

(d) For their production servers they don't choose Fedora, which is meant for desktops, really. (Too bleeding edge software, also many experimental bells and whistles turned on in their compiled kernel!).