Paul Greidanus wrote:
> 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?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>                     - Mike
> Hi Mike,
> 
> I'm running a mix of mostly Ubuntu and Scientific 4.4 right now..  I'm 
> using Ubuntu mostly as desktops, where application availability is the 
> most important piece, bleeding edge browser and all that mess.  SL is 
> running on my compute servers and anything that requires binary 
> compatibility with some of the binary tools we have to run here 
> (Cadence, Gaussian..).  My servers are Solaris 10/Sparc for NFS or file 
> IO bound boxes, and Ubuntu for meta data servers, mostly because of the 
> update frequency and availibility of tools like cacti, nagios, bacula.. 
> (which may well be in SL as well, I have not checked)

Those wanting the excitement of cutting-edge technologies and better 
compatibility* with SL might also look at Fedora 7 and its successors. 
Together with after-market suppliers, it has pretty fair software 
coverage, and there are guidelines for those wanting to get in and 
extend it, and probably enthusiasts could work with the rpmforge folk to 
increase package coverage without adding yet another repo.

* Compatibility has a variety of meanings. I'm thinking about management 
tools and techniques, and the user experience. Switching from one to the 
other is fairly simple, whether you're a scientist who wants go get on 
with science, or an admin wanting to get on with admin.




-- 

Cheers
John

-- spambait
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