Michael Hannon wrote:
> Hi, folks.  I'm getting some inquiries about Ubuntu these days.  The 
> following, from one of our postdocs, is fairly typical:
> 
>  > I'm not usually one to proselytize, but the availability of scientific
>  > applications on "Scientific Linux" is just embarrassing compared to
>  > Debian/Ubuntu.  Just some of the scientific apps I can apt-get that
>  > aren't available on SL: axiom, singular, root, grace.
> 
> I am personally happy and comfortable with SL, but I *can* see an 
> advantage to having Avogadro's number of packages available for quick 
> and easy installation.
> 
> I'd like to know how others are dealing with this.  Is anybody using 
> Ubuntu clients with SL servers for instance?  Any other words of wisdom 
> on this topic?

There should be no worries at all using U clients and SL servers. I 
regularly mix Linux distros (at school we have Debian on the servers, 
CentOS4 on my desktop). At home, I went from RHL to Debian to WBEL on my 
server, assorted RHL, RHEL-clones, Debian, Ubuntu on clients.

Do look at the vendor support life; most U releases have short lives.

Do look at what's supported. Universe is not, and odds are good that all 
your scientific packages are in Universe.

Do look at Java support. I don't know the current state, it could be 
good, it could be bad.

Do consider Debian. It's not as polished, but it has a longer support 
life than Ubuntu.

Also look at Mepis. It was based off Debian, but switched to U.

Oh, do look at what kinds of problems get fixed. selinux wasin 
Debian/woody but didn't actually work, and the selinux developers were 
not allowed to fix it "in case something else breaks." Security problems 
get fixed, but precious little else.




-- 

Cheers
John

-- spambait
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