Hello All,

 

Here are my two cents on this matter.

 

1.	I think that it is very likely that CentOS or a similar Linux distribution will be available in the long-term. When that is no longer the case, that may quite likely be due to broad issues affecting the Linux operating system as a whole. If CentOS is no longer available, a Linux distribution that is as similar as possible to CentOS would have to be identified.
2.	It makes sense for a scientific distribution based on CentOS or similar to be maintained. If Scientific Linux is no longer maintained by Fermilab, a dedicated nonprofit organization may take over. It may be funded by donations or via premium support services by the scientific community. That way, the distribution maintenance would be carried out professionally and not as an unpaid hobby.

 

Eremey

 

From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Yasha Karant
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2020 0:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is Scientfic Linux Still Active as a Distribution?

 

From below:

Will look forward to move to another distribution.

End excerpt.

The question is:  which distro?  My first hope was Oracle EL 8 -- given that Oracle has to compete with IBM and thus, unlike CentOS that may or may not fit into the profit/business long term plan of IBM (long term -- less than a decade, but more than three or four years -- at least through EL 9 first production release), provide a "working and usable" product, just as was SL.  After reading comments on this list, I am more tempted to give up on EL and move to Ubuntu LTS.  But -- I have not made a decision. For those who require a reliable, production, stable, but reasonably "current" Linux environment ("current" means that when I need an application, I will not find that there are no ports of the recent releases of the application to the Linux I am using because the major libraries -- .so files -- are too "obsolete"), what choices are available?  In so far as possible, I want the same distro to work on servers (and have CUDA support for compute servers with Nvidia GPU compute boards as well as MPI) and my laptop "workstation". 

If there is a more appropriate list to which to move this discussion, advice would be appreciated.   However, such a list needs to be for "professional" use, not "enthusiast end-user" use (who are looking for a different gaming environment, etc., than MS Win or Mac OS X).

Yasha Karant

On 2/22/20 5:46 PM, Marcelo Ferrarotti wrote:

Hello there,

 

I'm quite sad about SL EoL.

 

I'm no scientist, just an electronics guy who do a lot of research in RF (as hobby, mostly testing antennas for ham radio in VHF bands) from Argentina.

 

Fot SL the most "well done" linux distribution, for people who simply knows.

 

Will look forward to move to another distribution.

 

Cheers from Argentina

 

El sáb., 22 de febrero de 2020 8:46 p. m., Keith Lofstrom <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > escribió:

I'm an independent electronics inventor, heavily dependent
on both competent software and competent laboratory science,
both for the knowledge I depend on and the tools I use to
transform that knowledge into products and services for
my customers.  

SL has been a very good tool for that.  Thanks to all who
have contributed.

I depend on "benign neglect" for a stable computing
platform - just enough funding and staffing to fix urgent
problems, but not continuously mutate the platform to
conform to ephemeral fashion or management whim.

I moved /from/ Windows to gain that stability, even if
that limits the choice of new widgets I can attach to my
(older) computers.  I have plenty of replacement-spare
old widgets, and I don't need the distraction of a
rapidly mutating platform optimized for market churn
and planned-obsolescence sales. 

I'm actually glad that Microsoft, Apple, and IBM are
busily churning those markets, because it keeps their
customers distracted and not bothering me with those
distractions while I think and work.  The hardware cast
off by the fashion-chasers is still abundant on eBay,
and I have enough of it to last me for life (except
for the batteries and backlights for my old Thinkpads).

I presume there are enough like me, some of whom are on
this list, that we can continue to carve out a community
space on top of CentOS, focused on inquiry and reliability.

If CentOS 9 or 10 or 11 goes off the rails, there are
enough of us here to tweak CentOS 7 or 8 into something
we can continue to use, just like Linux was "in the good
old days". 

While "security by obscurity" is not optimum, I presume a
smaller community of impoverished science geeks is a less
tempting target for professional software criminals than
million-dollar IT departments for billion-dollar
corporations and governments, or billions of hapless
consumers.  We are part of the global target, but we are
unlikely to attract specific attention from the bad guys.

And while we still benefit from the use of servers at
Fermilabs for our "static" distro and our active mailing
list, perhaps we should have a backup plan for migration
in case some bureaucrat decides to pull the plug on us.
That has /always/ been a risk for what we do here; we are
one presidential tweet away from Saint Louis USDA exile.

As a community of scientific, like-minded Linux users,
let's begin to prepare a rudimentary plan B, and hope
that we never need to implement it.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>