Hello,
I have recently set up an SL5 machine, and it is basically working
fine except that I was not able to install Mathematica from a CD.  The
error message I got when attempting to run the installer was:

-bash: ./MathInstaller: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: Permission denied

I believe that this is because the CD was automounted with the noexec
option, but I do not know how to fix this.  On Debian and SL305, it
was a case of modifying /etc/fstab, and on SL44 software would install
from CD right out of the box, but on SL5 there is no relevant line in
/etc/fstab so presumably some other file needs tweaking.

Now a few more minor issues and questions:

SL5 does not include the latest version of R.  Which of the R rpms at
http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/ would be appropriate?  There is no
RHEL5 repository there at the moment.  Would any of the fedora
repositories do?

The default Gnome background with the picture of the atom seems to
have disappeared, which was a bit surprising when I first tried out
the SL5 machine.  Also, the Inbox Monitor applet has vanished and
presumably been replaced by xbiff, so I'll need to work out how xbiff
can be made to run for all users when they log in.

acroread defaults to letter paper for all printers.  I have this
problem with SL44 too, and I suppose it's a bug in acroread, but is
there a way to avoid having to change the paper size every time?
Eva.