LHC@home

I wonder, if this combination will be supported alongside with the Intel compiler versions for GNU/Linux and MS Windows in future?

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For now, they say "no."

The resason has to do with processor (CPU) architecture in regard to the floating point unit. I am not sure in which way PowerPC processors are different, but they are. However when Mac OSX goes Intel publically you (and I stress) may find a version of sixtrack that's Mac-on-Intel compatible.

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The biggest problem is that the Fortran compiler we use is proprietary software and does not support Mac OS X.

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Markku Degerholm
LHC@home admin

Here <http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/21262> you may find a Mac OS X Fortran compiler. It is a demo, but maybe you can find out if it can help you.

I'd like to see a Mac OS X version of your project...


Cheers!
Luca

Here ... you may find a Mac OS X Fortran compiler...

Hi Luca,

Yes there do exist Fortran compilers for the Mac. The problem for LHC is that the sixtrack app is *very* sensitive to platform. Small rounding adjustments are inevitable in all floating point calculations, and these differ from one platform to another and from one compiler to another.

At present the LHC scheduler sorts work by platform, so that for example if the first result of a WU goes to Linux on a given cpu then all the other results from that WU go to boxes running Linux on the same cpu. If Mac was added to the list the same could be done for Macs of course. This would mean that only a small proportion of work would be done on the Mac.

Before the project got to that stage, the admins would need to check out whether Sixtrack is suffiently stable on whatever compiler they used for the Mac. A lot of work for the admins on a project actually has more than enough hosts already to cover the available work.

In contrast on both issues, the Rosetta project for example has urgent need for lots more volunteers, and they have an application that runs well using only simgle precision floating point (less than half the number of digits accuracy of Sixtrack). For both those reasons that project has made their app available on the Mac (OS X 10.3.9+) as shown on the Rosetta System Requirements page

River~~

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The biggest problem is that the Fortran compiler we use is proprietary software and does not support Mac OS X.

Really? It seems to support Linux OK.

Mac OS X is a flavour of Unix, as is Linux. I would have naively assumed that the complied-for-Linux app would run on an x86 MAC OS X. But then, I've been wrong before...

R~~

Mac OS X is a flavour of Unix, as is Linux.

Not true on either count. Unix has long been the copyright software of AT&T. Versions have crept out to other vendors, but OSX and Linux are not derived from Unix.

Linux is an independent development of software that has a superficial Unix-like appearance. Mac OSX is a proprietary system, and it, too, has only a superficial resemblance to Unix.

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Gaspode the UnDressed
http://www.littlevale.co.uk

Mac OS X is a flavour of Unix, as is Linux.

Not true on either count. Unix has long been the copyright software of AT&T. Versions have crept out to other vendors, but OSX and Linux are not derived from Unix.

You are well out of date.

In 1993 ownership of the Unix trademark and copyright passed from Novell to The Open Group. Yes at some time in the even more distant past it was a trademark of AT&T, and before that of Bell Labs. I am old enough to have used Unix when you got the "Unix is a trademark of Bell Laborotories" claim posted at the start of every session.

The Open Group's view of Linux is that it is "Developed by Linus Torvalds, Linux is a product that mimics the form and function of a UNIX system, but is not derived from licensed source code." Sounds to me more than a superficial resemblance.

Mac OS X at the command line level is BSD if I am not mistaken - the Mac specific parts of the OS come in at the graphics level (what you float above X - the Apple alternative to KDE or Gnome in effect). The Open Group's view of BSD is that "It is, as with Linux, not a registered UNIX system, though in this case there is a common code heritage if one looks far enough back in history." Even less of a superficial resemblance.


Since before Linux was a PhD project, BSD has been described as a flavour of Unix. Since Linux became well known it too has been so described by its friends and enemies. All the flavours of Unix largely or completely support the common POSIX standard and document any departures from it. POSIX is almost an acronym for Portable Operating System Interface, with the X signifying the Unix heritage of the API, and the name POSIX was originally suggested by Richard Stallman

I like Wikipedia. That is where I got the POSIX info from.

But if you are wanting to be pedantic about ownership of Unix, it seems to me that you'd best start with what the current owners of the mark say about it. They even use the word "flavors" to encompass both Linux and BSD, as in the title and url of the web page I took those quotes from http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/flavors_of_unix.html

EDIT to add:

Finally, there is the fact that IBM have been sued for allegedly contributing licensed Unix code to the Linux project. Tho these claims have never been proven in court (and so far no evidence filed in support) it is again obvious that there is more than a superficial resemblance.

R~~

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