K. Everything I've done is basically translating a Matlab script to Python using numpy or tensorflow or something. So we'd go from Matlab taking hours to Python taking minutes. The biggest project was a Monte Carlo simulation of signals produced from explosions (looking for seismographic impact) that takes something like 45 min per run when run on our cloud infra.

So something a little more interesting than plotting an FFT if overlaid signals, but still on the simpler end of the spectrum.

We're nowhere near the point where tuning the OS is interesting, we just use Linux because it's convenient. I wonder how much of the HPC crowd has a similar perspective, at least until you get to the higher end where tuning the OS becomes important.