On Sat, Nov 15, 2025 at 7:10 AM Baptiste Jonglez via cfarm-users <[email protected]> wrote: > > As some of you may know, OSUOSL is moving to a new datacenter. > > All "exotic" hosts (POWER etc) will be moved, it should be transparent > except for a bit of downtime. > > However, the three x86 machines (cfarm186, 187, 188) are getting quite > old, so OSUOSL is looking at replacing them with newer hardware. We > probably won't be able to keep as many machines. > > Here are two possible options to start the discussion: > > - option 1: one much bigger machine, bare metal. Which (single) OS makes the > most sense? > > - option 2: several virtual machines. Which (multiple) OS would be useful?
I think Hurd would make a good choice to help with portability of C/C++ programs for a couple of reasons. First, Hurd lacks PATH_MAX and friends, and it is a surprise to some program authors, and a pain in the butt for package maintainers and porters. Also see <https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/community/gsoc/project_ideas/maxpath.html>. Second, setting up a Hurd virtual machine has some sharp edges. It is not as easy as setting up a Debian or Red Hat vm. If a vm was already available, it could help folks interested in porting to Hurd since the machine is already available. > What do you think? > > Here, "big" means dual-socket Intel Xeon Platinum 8280, so 56 cores / 112 > threads, with 768 GB RAM. Jeff _______________________________________________ cfarm-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.tetaneutral.net/listinfo/cfarm-users
