Linux: It doesn't get any faster

"IBM's Sony PlayStation 3 processor"

I am sure it used to have another name, though? Also, really the same version as in the PS3, or the "pro" version? (Ah, now I remember: "Cell" was the name).

Don't take this the wrong way, but the article's data doesn't say what they want it to. While it is true that Linux can be stripped down farther than Windows (and thus do raw calculations faster), that isn't necessarily the only reason that supercomputers use Linux.

For example, Windows licenses for supercomputers are very expensive, as historically they're server editions priced by CPU count. This is a drop in the bucket where supercomputers are concerned, but this would mean that Windows would need to be better in some other way: even if it's not much, people don't generally like to pay for nothing. The difference could almost mean another CPU in some cases.

Also, while Windows has much better consumer hardware support, this aspect of compatibility is not relevant to supercomputers. Linux has much better support for different hardware architectures (the so-called "Playstation 3 processor" can run Linux, but not Windows). This will typically mean additional cost savings for a Linux setup, as they won't need to pay the x86 premium (in terms of $$/processing power).

I'd place tunability at a distant second to hardware costs, and software costs at a distant third. I'm just curious why more of them don't go with BSD.

Perhaps the most misleading title of an article I've ever seen.

"It doesn't get any faster than Linux" would get my vote - on first glance, I thought some caveat had been found in the kernel, meaning it wouldn't go "any faster" than it presently does.

The author suggests that popularity should be related to raw processing power. If his premise was true, Beowulf clusters would be more popular than Nintendo DS's.

"The Windows' fan club likes to point out that Windows is far more popular than Linux. The reason for that has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with monopoly. Nothing shows that better than the semi-annual TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers."

Utter drivel.

I think "users" of supercomputers, i.e, application developers, would on average greatly prefer Linux to BSD. Ironically, it's probably the same reason that consumer devices come with Windows.