Have used both operating systems but not specifically for aerospace engineering work. Is there a definite benefit to one or the other OS in the aerospace field?
If so, please site any known free starter apps.

Thanks,
WDA
ballensr@gmail.com

Welcome to LQ!

Your question probably has no useful answer, even if you were to frame it more precisely which you should do.

I think that you are approaching the question from the wrong end - the OS is just a platform for tools, and the tools depend on the task at hand. "Aerospace engineering" is far overbroad a description of a general field, not a task.

For example, is your interest in the sphere of aerodynamics, aeronautics, orbital mechanics, astronautics, life-support, operations? What engineering field is of interest, propulsion, flight-control, telemetry, materials, structural design, thermodynamics, electronics... the list is very long indeed!

Asking whether Ubuntu or Mint is better for aerospace jobs is not a meaningful question. On the other hand, in the hands of someone with a well understood engineering task, any GNU/Linux distro is a powerful platform with a built-in tool box ready to apply to the job!

Good luck!

1 members found this post helpful.

Neither.
They are nearly identical "under the hood".
Ubuntu 16 is Mint 18, yada yada yada

Hello and welcome to the forum

As the others have suggested, there is no distribution to my knowledge that is designed specifically with aerospace engineering in mind. However, there is software available that might be able to help with this kind of work. Please see the thread here. In addition, there is an Ubuntu Community Help article here that might be of help. Some, if not all, of these programs may be available in Ubuntu's repositories, which will allow for easy downloading and installation using the CLI or a package manager, such as Synaptic.

Also, you might want to remove your email address from your post lest your inbox ends up with a boatload of SPAM in the very near future.

Regards...

1 members found this post helpful.

This ex-aerospace Computer SysAdmin is not sure, but if the name of the distro is any indication then perhaps Scientific Linux may be worth a look, but "specifically for aerospace engineering work"?

Not sure what that means.

Linux is the kernel of the operating system that uses GNU software, each distribution is some one elses idea of a solution.

Aerospace is a major industry, & whilst it may well run on 'Linux', you would be better knowing which base distro is being used, as there are slight differences in the way in which they all work.

i suspect the original question should have been "will software XYZ run on linux, and if so, on which distro?" or something like that.

I'd approach it from the opposite angle. I'd look into what software that you need to use. If one or all of them require a specific distro, or work better under one, that would be the distro that I'd pursue. If you are using the same distro as the developers and/or users of that software, your solutions to problem mnay come easier. All the other, regular stuff can be done under any distro, your software may have specific requirements.

The target audience of Mint is users who use audio and video as well as internet media. It is not a technical distro but has many ways to add in programs based on other formats besides their own repository.

Ubuntu has a good LTS version and many technical advantages in my opinion over mint.

I'll have to suggest Scientific Linux also for this task.

No.

I'd think a slight advantage in terms of security exists on Ubuntu. My thinking is that the more programs and services are running in mint could create a possible way for data issues. This may result in a very very slight speed increase but you'd have to perform calculations over days to see it.