Scientific Linux

Scientific Linux (SL ) is a Linux distribution that has on the distribution of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ( RHEL ) of the company Red Hat is based and this is binary compatible. The distribution will be further developed primarily by developers at Fermilab, CERN, at the ETH Zurich and at DESY.

Background

The commercial Linux distribution RHEL can only be purchased in conjunction with support contracts. However, the company Red Hat provides all the source packages from RHEL on the net ready to meet the demands of different licenses - to meet free software, and thus makes it possible to develop on this basis a binary compatible to RHEL Linux distribution - included in RHEL. Due to the binary compatibility allows Scientific Linux computer with a RHEL - compatible Linux distributions to use, without a support contract with Red Hat must complete. In addition to financial savings, there is also the advantage that all software that is available for RHEL, can be used directly and without restrictions under Scientific Linux.

Goal of Scientific Linux

Scientific Linux was created in the context of several research labs and universities, and was created to fulfill various requirements of these institutions:

  • Not every institute and laboratory must establish its own distribution - the bundling of efforts to avoid duplication of work.
  • Through a joint distribution to all researchers is a common install base for various experiments.
  • Being compatible with RHEL ensures that enterprise Linux software, which often is only for RHEL available, easily running on Scientific Linux.
  • The easy adaptability of the distribution that allows institutions or laboratories can post an optically adapted version of the distribution, without compromising the other goals.
  • Scientific Linux is extended by often necessary or practical in science software to meet the software needs of academic institutions.

Enterprise operating system

Scientific Linux is binary compatible with RHEL and therefore also an enterprise operating system, so an operating system that is geared to the needs of large companies and government organizations. As an enterprise operating system, therefore it is designed for durability and long maintenance cycles. You can use Scientific Linux up to ten years of having to migrate without packages and software versions, so it is suitable for commercial use. For RHEL offer great software companies such as Oracle or SAP certificates that guarantee that the software works fine on RHEL, which also applies to large server manufacturer. Enterprise operating systems one finds therefore mostly on workstations and servers where a extremely stable operation is required (eg, science, research, stock exchange, military or space ). Unlike RHEL there for Scientific Linux of most software and hardware manufacturers, neither certificates nor support. However, due to the binary compatibility with RHEL, it can often take advantage of the conditions to be created for RHEL directly.

History of Scientific Linux

Scientific Linux was created in the context of various universities and research institutes such as CERN and Fermilab. It built on top of the Linux distribution " Fermi Linux LTS 3.0.1 ", which had been extended by some programs and updates. After that, however, it was decided to use the sources from RHEL to be binary compatible with this Linux distribution, since most enterprise Linux software is available for RHEL.

Areas of application

Scientific Linux is used in addition to RHEL and Debian on the International Space Station, as NASA announced.

Versions

718678
de