Linux share in Supercomputer OS

By
M. Zinoune
linux supercomputer

Linux accounts for as much as 94.2% share as Supercomputer OS! This might come to you as a pleasant surprise, but indeed, Linux outshines anyother operating system when it comes to Linux. Investigation of the latest ranking released by Top500 (independent organization responsible for ranking supercomputers according to the LINPACK benchmark) yields some very interesting results. As it might be boring for you go through a detailed report, we have compiled the results in a handy infograph that shall give you a quick and intuitive insight to our findings.

linux supercomputer

Linux share in supercomputers

Some findings are summarized here:

  1. All the top Ten Supercomputers use Linux OS. (Linux OS includes Cray Linux Environment and bullx SUperCOmputer Suit)
  2. All the top Twenty Supercomputers use Linux OS. Two of which use Linux OS bullx SUperCOmputer Suit.
  3. Out of top 50 Supercomputers 44 run on Linux OS while 6 use OS other than Linux. 3 of which use Unix while 3 use Mixed OS. The supercomputers which employ Mixed Operating system use CNK/SLES 9.
  4. Out of Top 100 Supercomputers 7 operate on UNIX, 1 on Windows, 5 use mixed operating system. All the rest 87 Supercomputer use Linux.
  5. The super computer that runs on Windows ranks 96th fastest supercomputer out of 100.
  6. Out of supercomputers ranked from 100th to 150th, 5 employ non-Linux OS 3 of which are Unix, 1 BSD-based OS and 2 run on Mixed type of OS.
  7. Out of Supercomputers ranked between 100th to 200th, 11 use Operating system other than Linux. Of which 1 is Windows OS. The Windows Supercomputer is ranked 157th among top 200 Supercomputers.
  8. Out of Supercomputers ranked between 200th to 300 only 4 supercomputers use OS other than Linux, 3 employ Mixed while 1 employs UNIX.
  9. Finally out of top 500 super computers , 462 run Linux, followed by Unix with 24 Supercomputers and 11 running Mixed 2 running on Windows. Finally there is only 1 BSD OS based supercomputer.
  10. Supercomputers that run on Windows family OS both employ Windows HPC 2008 OS.

Having stated all the stats, we come to the conclusion that Linux despite being an open source software (allegedly having lack of support, lack of proper documentation etc.) has completely crushed proprietary OS when it comes to supercomputers. Why do you think Linux has excelled as supercomputer OS?