Hi Troy and Connie,

I have prepared packages which you may want to put into SL51, either in 
the main tree or in conrib.

For the main repo I would suggest the packages in
http://linux.web.psi.ch/dist/scientific/51/beta/sl/

915resolution-0.5.3-4.slp5.src.rpm         
ipw3945-1.2.0-2.slp5.src.rpm                : fix path to module dir
ipw3945-firmware-1.14.2-1.slp5.src.rpm      : update to 1.14
iwlwifi-4965-ucode-4.44.17-5.slp5.src.rpm   : needed for iwl4965.ko
madwifi-0.9.3.3-12.slp5.src.rpm             : update to latest version 
0.9.3.3

For contrib I have:
http://linux.web.psi.ch/dist/scientific/51/beta/contrib/

ati       : ATI driver, needs dkms
aufs      : another unionfs, used by SL5 LiveCD
dkms      : Dynamic Kernel Module Support
firewire  : firewire support
gspcav1   : Support for webcams
ntfs-3g   : NTFS w/r support, latest version
nvidia    : NVIDIA driver, needs dkms
xfs       : took SRPM from centos extra, rewrote spec file, not tested much

See also the README files.

Concerning nvidia and ati driver. They use dkms. Either you like dkms or 
not. However, it seems to work. I decided to use it at PSI and it's 
working so far.

You once asked for numpy and scipy. I have it in SLP5 at PSI. But I had 
to replace/update lapack, blas in SL5. Would you like to have a look 
into the SRPMs, you still find them in 
http://linux.web.psi.ch/dist/scientific/50/psi/current/

Cheers,
   
    Urs