4 of 5 top supercomputers running Linux

Definitely of interest in following up on the supercomputer news today, a list of the top 500 supercomputers has been published at top500.org. What is most interesting about them is that Linux claims 4 of the top 5 as the operating system of choice for these mammoths of computing, On top of that, the Xeon and Opteron have gained much ground in the number of these machines using them, while the ever-controversial Itanium has declined significantly. 7 of the top 10 reside within the U.S., with IBM's BlueGene holding that number one spot. IBM makes up a huge portion of the supercomputer market, so their backing of Linux has defnitely helped spurn its growth in the super high end enterprise markets. With x86 becoming a choice for companies moving off older machines it is a wonder what this list will look like in five years.