scientific linux questions....

davidkline · 07-30-2006, 09:07 AM

i looking into using the scientific linux (sl) distribution, but before i do, i'd like to get opinions from people who have experience with it.

does anyone have any opinions about it? good, bad, whatever. here are some questions for those who have it installed.

- what is you application (desktop,industrial,etc..).
- is it easy to install?
- how small can it get? i'm like to trim i down to <1gb, but <2gb is ok.
- is it easy to maintain updates and security patches?

thanks in advance for your feedback,
/david

weibullguy · 07-30-2006, 10:52 AM

I tried Scientific because I thought it might have more science/engineering/math applications available in its repositories. I was wrong, I think it has fewer. I ended up getting rid of it because I didn't like the way it "felt". I did keep its GRUB menu image...it's an atom, kinda cool.

Anyway...

1. It's a desktop and is very much like Fedora. Scientific is a Red Hat derivative.
2. Yes. If you can install Fedora, you can install Scientific.
3. I installed it with a KDE and I think it came in around 3.5GB. You can probably get it in under 2GB, but it might be tough. I think Scientific offers XFCE as a window manager and that might do it. Once again, it's similar to a Fedora installation.
4. As a Red Hat derivative, it uses yum for updates. I think yum is pretty easy to use and does a decent job. There are several GUI frontends for yum but I always use it from the CLI. You can also use apt.

All in all, I didn't really like Scientific. There's nothing wrong with it, but it didn't "feel" right to me for some reason. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't not recommend it.

Mara · 07-30-2006, 02:48 PM

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux-Distributions and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

davidkline · 08-01-2006, 12:25 PM

thanks for the info ... i appreciate your honesty....
/david

sergiy_sy · 08-10-2006, 09:57 AM

Can anybody help me?
I need to install Scientific Linux 4.3 - i386. I have download all CD images (from ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/...c/43/iso/i386/) and burned them in the same way. However after checking CD-1 system sad that it was failed (all other CDs were Ok). When I tried to download and burn it ones more the same problem occured. It very interesting why after informing me about bad condition of this CD system can provide further pre-installing adjustments? I was afraid to began installing (it also Windows system on PC). Did anybody have such a problems?