Re: Debian Science related blog post (about Debian usage @ EDF)

Hi Stefano,

On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 14:27 +0200, Carsten Aulbert wrote:
> On Thursday 27 May 2010 14:12:09 Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> > The post is at
> > http://upsilon.cc/~zack/blog/posts/2010/05/Debian-based_scientific_computin
> > g_at_EDF/ and kudos your work, so it's probably appropriate to mention it
> > here :)
> > 
> Nice post and I can put a big tick behind any of the items, Debian is just 
> great although I'm not understanding why they need "calibre" instead of "pure" 
> Debian. I'm definitely interested in sharing knowledge with you/them/anyone.

I agree, great post.  I can understand the need for "calibre" -- when
you make custom changes, even compile flag optimizations for a given
cluster or CPU sub-arch, you want a place to keep the binary packages
where they're easy to install.  It's also good for custom backporting
and phased upgrades, it's the same reason many people have backport
repositories.

> > Related to that, I'm now collecting some feedback about other users of
> > Debian in scientific computing / cluster environments. What would be the
> > most appropriate venue to have people interested in that topic discuss
> > together? Would this list be appropriate or should I rather request a
> > new list, e.g. [email protected], to replace the (long dead it seems)
> > [email protected] mailing list?
> > 
> debian-hpc sounds nice, but I fear that it will eventually die as well as the 
> group of people is very, very small. But at least I think it's worth a try.

I agree about the small group, and there are a lot of people here on
debian-science who use clusters (myself included).

I've been in indirect contact with some people at EDF, and my impression
is that they don't interface much with mainstream Debian because it's
hard.  Not that Debian is difficult per se, but it's not easy to both
maintain a production environment which is in between stable and
unstable, and also keep an eye on unstable and push packages and patches
to it.  There's a "culture shift" needed to see the long-term benefit to
direct participation in a project like this, not unlike that of the
Linux kernel, where organizations similarly have internal trees with
occasional -- and often unpleasant -- contact with the
always-on-the-bleeding-edge community.  I think we're pleasant people
here at debian-science, but still it's hard.

Just an outside impression.  Thanks again for visiting them and for your
blog post.

-Adam
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