linux operating system for server

I'm going to be setting up a server that will eventually turn into a cluster, and need to be able to run matlab on it using parallel/cluster toolboxes. I'm considering a linux system, and according to the mathworks site my options are:

- ubuntu - red hat - suse - debian

has anybody something similar that could offer some advice into this choice?

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

Despite the documentation, I believe MATLAB can be made to work on any distribution.

That said you might want to see this which reports a problem with Rock Linux on cluster

There are also report of Linux font problems, but this should be less of a concern with a cluster.

I would go with Debian. I can see a case for SUSE if you want an RPM based distro. I wouldn't pay for Red Hat and the polish of Ubuntu doesn't belong on a server in my mind.

[Tim]

MATLAB can be made to work on any distribution, but can you see any performance benefits to choosing a certain one?

[Daniel Shub]

I think of perfromance as a trade off between compute time, down time, and usability. For my desktop I use Arch because I am willing to live on the bleeding edge. For my server and compute machines I run Debian stable since I cannot afford down time on those machines. I am probably sacrificing some power, but gain it back in uptime and lower maintenance.

I don't think Debian is any better than SUSE (although I have never maintained a SUSE machine). I do think for a server/compute machine Debian is much better than Ubuntu since I don't need things like Unity.

[Walter Roberson]

My reading has suggested that SUSE has the advantage if you need higher security levels than regular Linux (in that the "hardened Linux" package was developed for SUSE.)

Also, I believe that it is SUSE that is used for "single-image" clusters (clusters in which there is a single logical operating system instance distributed over all of the nodes, as opposed to a bunch of communicating machines each with its own operating system instance.) For _some_ kinds of computing, "single image" is very advantageous computationally -- though I gather that the majority of computations can be handled well even with multiple-image systems. Weather and especially nuclear fusion are two examples where single-image works better.

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

We used to use Red Hat on one of our clusters, until red hat stopped development of their free version and moved to a software-maintenance-fee model. Not that it was expensive, but the admin got annoyed at being asked to pay for "free" software.

Me, I was raised in the days where the asking price for software updates was weighed against the labor costs of doing the work ourselves and the labor costs of working around problems that there were already known solutions for.

This is, naturally, just one of the considerations. I do not have any information about relative efficiencies or reliabilities.

[Tim]

that's an interesting point, what system did you use after red hat?

[Walter Roberson]

Ubuntu I believe it was.