Linux lab dips toes into cluster work

Open Source Development Labs, a Linux consortium backed by many of the world's largest computing companies, has established a group to advance the open-source operating system for use in one type of supercomputing. OSDL established its Clusters Special Interest Group to boost the use of groups of Linux machines interconnected into a single high-performance computer.

One purpose of the group will be to try to build consensus for features that need to be added to the kernel, or heart, of Linux, and to reduce redundant programming efforts, OSDL developer John Cherry said in a mailing list posting this month. "No common kernel components will ever be mainlined unless there is agreement in the clusters community," he said. Representatives from OSDL, Sun Microsystems, Nortel Networks, Intel and Novell's SuSE Linux participated in the group's first conference call.