IB is faster and cheaper than 10GE. Unless you get 10GE from your IB vendor.

All IB solutions support RH distros fairly well, so I'd stick with RH-like or RH-proper. CentOS has been our x86 Linux reference platform for xCAT development.

Use xCAT for cluster management and use xCAT's stateless provisioning (no need for local HDs). With xCAT we were able to provision the fastest system in Canada (~4000 nodes) over 40:1 blocking GigE in 8 minutes (but we had 10 10GE-based service nodes). xCAT was also used for the first 1.0 and 1.1 Petaflop system (LANL Roadrunner).

For billing and chargeback consider Moab with Gold. If you use Moab with xCAT and stateless provisioning, then you can power up nodes on demand and power them down automatically when not in use and track/bill one energy usage. You also have the ability to specify different OS loads on-demand so that your system can be more of an HPC cloud and not just a static homogeneous cluster. Lastly xCAT can support KVM if you want to throw a few VMs in there as well. Oh, and if get the itch to use Windows, xCAT supports that too.

Goto conference--awesome name for a programming conference. However, their logo: "goto;" is a bit confusing, where are we going? Perhaps I should be reading it as "goto conference;".

Android is based on Linux and Linux already has Xen, KVM, and LXC for virtualization. What would VMware add to the mix other than cost?

Xen and KVM can be a bit heavy handed, but LXC is lightweight and may be best suited for mobile virtualization (assuming that you only want to run instances of the host OS--a limitation of containers).

KVM is based on qemu and I already know that works with ARM--the processor of choice for smart mobile devices.

So, I do not see a need for VMware.

As for VM need: Given all the viruses and other nasties targeting Android, it'd be nice to have VM snapshotting (or any snapshotting) capability so that I can roll back. Or perhaps push my VM to "the cloud" and fire up on a replacement device or a friends phone with fully charged battery--assuming that I do not need to download 32 GB of data. I guess my state could be in the cloud, but my data in a different cloud. Given the impressive Javasciprt-based emulators I could get my VM from a browser. Anyway, there are possibilities. I do like the idea of a personal VM and a work VM and a VM for my wife when she borrows my phone.

I have nothing against the 2nd ed. K&R, it's just that only the 1st ed. was available in the early 80's. It was the best programming book I had read at the time. Both books are great in that they are small.

Programming the Z80 and Programming the 6502 (both from Zaks) are probably the best assembly language programming books I have read because they focus on processor internals and how computers work. Understanding assembly can make you a better C coder. And who doesn't love inline assembly? :-)

Hacker's Delight is a great read. You can perform a lot of magic by shifting bits around. This book is often cited as the "lost TAOCS book".

I prefer Concrete Mathematics over TAOCS as far as Knuth books go.

Nolan Bushnell (co-founder) of Atari back-in-the-day is back and in charge. Given the success of their 3 million downloads on iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ataris-greatest-hits/id422966028?mt=8) they see $$$ potential.

I hope the 2600 hardware and home-brew community survives.

Given the spanking that Nintendo is taking due to mobile gaming, watch out SNES and NES emulators.

Doh! s/Force/Source/

Samsung CEO, "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." :-)

And if you think Google holding back the source was bad (http://www.thisgreenmachine.com/?p=914), wait, it'll get worse.

Only time will tell. Android is already fracturing. Handset manufactures are not consistent. In six months we will probably have "Open Android" from another outfit.

WW there are more Linux-based handsets than iOS. There are about ~100 different types of phones WW that run Linux and only one that runs iOS. Apple cannot make enough iOS handsets to meet the WW demand for smart phones. Recently Apple became the #1 smart phone maker, but #1 does not equate to > 50% of the market. iOS will never be #1 and it does not have to be. BTW, I use iOS and OS/X. Both minority OSes. Nothing wrong with that. But I still firmly believe that WW as developing countries have to pick smart phone, tablet, and desktop OSes, Linux is going to be the winner in the long run.

I'll admit to using the term "desktop" liberally. But my subtle point was that, "who cares, times are changing".

The "average" user is changing. And the traditional desktop may no longer be as relevant in the future.

My Apple IIe and I'll bet C64 users would disagree. They were embedded systems and desktops.

That started to change as floppy drives become popular and then HD, and then bloated but much more capable OSes.

Today, embedded may not be a desktop, but embedded can be a desktop.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/five-billion-people-to-use-mobile-phones-in-2010-un-1900768.html

Duh! Thanks.

Define desktop. If it is the principle UI that you use to communicate with the Internet and run applications, then...

There are 7 billion people. ~2 billion PCs and ~5 billion phones worldwide. The growth UI will be in phones and other low cost devices. *That*, is the new desktop and it will be Linux-based.

My TiVo and my Blu-ray player run Linux. That could be considered a media desktop. Or media UI. For some, sadly, TV is their principle app.

Linux has won the desktop OS wars. It's just that nobody knows it yet.

As for desktop UI apps, the future is HTML5.