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[Platforms #ZLK-587176]: linux os

Hi Frank,

re:
> We are about to re-arrange our LDM/Gempak machines, and given the many
> flavors of Linux, wondered what flavor and version you might recommend.
> Or does it matter?

The LDM runs on every flavor of Linux we have tried so far.  LDM logging,
on the other hand, works "out of the box" on Linux distributions that
use syslogd (or rsyslogd).  Linux systems that use syslogd include all
RedHat variants (e.g., RedHat Enterprise, Fedora, CentOS, Mandriva, etc.).
Systems known to not use syslogd are typically Debian variants (e.g., Debian,
Ubuntu, etc.).  Please note that this is not a given that one distribution
uses syslogd and another uses syslog-ng.  In fact, one can use either on
pretty much any Linux variant.

We use Fedora here at the UPC: we currently use Fedora Core 7, Fedora 8
and Fedora 9.  Numerous Unidata community sites use RedHat Enterprise and
still others use CentOS (CentOS is essentially a free repackaging of
RedHat Enterprise).  Still others use Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware, and OpenSUSE.

Aside: life would have been much easier if a single version of Linux had
emerged from the OS wars (sigh) :-)

> We have an older version of Red Hat that works for
> our NWS Awips simulator, Fedora core 3 for some older systems we used
> for mm5 simulations, and the newest Ubuntu for running mm5 in our lab
> for teaching purposes.  With ubuntu, we have had some issues with some
> utilities, so to minimize the tweaking, I figured I would ask before we
> start installing new operating systems.  On the web page, the only
> information I could glean was "some variant of a UNIX operating system",
> with standard user shell, perl 5, and ntpd.

Correct.  We have take the approach that our code should work on all "major"
*nix platforms.  That being said, however, we would recommend against certain
flavors of Unix mainly because their use in the community is low, and we do
not have the funds to keep a test machine up to date in our shop.  The short
list of OSes that do not enjoy as much use in the Unidata community as they
once did are:

AIX
OSF/1
IRIX

> So what would you recommend?

I would recommend that you consider CentOS or RedHat Enterprise.  The reason is
that the next generation of GEMPAK, NAWIPS-II, is being built by Raytheon to run
on the platforms being used in the Weather Service -- RedHat Enterprise.  Since
it costs to keep RedHat Enterprise up to date (i.e., to get security updates, 
etc.),
and since CentOS is a free repackage of RedHat Enterprise, a number of people in
the community have opted to migrate to it.  This choice should (NB: _should_ 
not _will_;
there are no guarantees at this point given the ongoing development activities 
wrt
NAWIPS-II) be a good one looking down the road to NAWIPS-II.

Questions:

- do you already own the hardware that you intend to install the OS on

- if yes, what is the architecture (e.g., 32-bit, 64-bit; Xeon, AMD, etc.)

No worries.

Cheers,

Tom
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Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: ZLK-587176
Department: Support Platforms
Priority: Normal
Status: Closed