Distribution
Yellow Dog Linux is sold by Fixstars who also market Sony PlayStation 3 consoles, IBM workstations, and servers with Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed. As is the case with most other Linux distribution vendors, a portion of the revenue from the sale of these boxed distributions goes toward development of the Linux operating system and applications, the results of which are made available as source code under various free and open source licenses.
As an interesting application of YDL on PlayStation 3 consoles: Gaurav Khanna, a professor in the Physics Department of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth built a message-passing based cluster using 16 PS3s. This cluster was the first such cluster that generated published scientific results. Dubbed as the "PS3 Gravity Grid", this PS3 cluster performs astrophysical simulations of large supermassive black holes capturing smaller compact objects. Khanna claims that the cluster's performance exceeds that of a 100+ Intel Xeon core based traditional Linux cluster on his simulations. The PS3 Gravity Grid gathered significant media attention through 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.
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Famous quotes containing the word distribution:
“Classical and romantic: private language of a family quarrel, a dead dispute over the distribution of emphasis between man and nature.”
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“My topic for Army reunions ... this summer: How to prepare for war in time of peace. Not by fortifications, by navies, or by standing armies. But by policies which will add to the happiness and the comfort of all our people and which will tend to the distribution of intelligence [and] wealth equally among all. Our strength is a contented and intelligent community.”
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