Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Since a single system image OS is not a viable options, I need to decide what system image to start with.

As interesting as Plan 9 is, I think I will wait an look at that one after I have more experience with the capabilities of the more travelled path.

I will use a Linux load of some kind. This environment is very efficient and I am very familiar with building and maintaining system using Linux. This narrows the choice down to two main alternatives: Raspbian and Arch.

Raspbian

The most popular load of the Raspberry Pi series is Raspbian, a derivative of the Debian Linux family. This is not much of a surprise as Raspbian is designed to support the primary goal of the Raspberry Pi program, education. It is quite friendly in its implementation. It presents a graphical desktop, includes many applications in the base load, and uses the same Apt package management tools as Ubuntu, another Debian derivative. The current release supports all variants of the Raspberry Pi from the original ARMv6 models to the most recent ARMv8 model. This consistency will simplify configuration and could allow using some of the older devices I have with the nodes in the cluster. The current version of Raspbian is based on the Debian Jessie release. There is also a Raspbian Jessie Lite image that has only the base OS and a minimal set of tools. These can be used to the nodes other than the head node. (It can also be used for the head node once I know what I want packages I want to use.)

Arch

Arch Linux on ARM (ALARM) is another option. Arch uses a different image for the original models of Raspberry Pi and the new models, 2 and 3. This starts as a minimal collection of tools expecting the user to install those items needed for the task at hand. This project requires more knowledge of Linux than Raspbian which shouldn’t be a major issue for me. It also uses a different package management tool, pacman, that I do not have experience with. There will be more building of tools from source, but that also allows more control. This may eventually lead to a better system and improved performance relative to Raspbian. It might be easier to adapt a 64-bit kernel using Arch as a basis.

Current Plan

I’ve downloaded each of the images available. I will create a boot image for each and see what that looks like. I will use that review to guide where I go next.