
The End of Scientific Linux - l2dy
https://lwn.net/Articles/786422/
======
saagarjha
The article doesn’t do it justice, so I decided to search for it on Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Linux).
Basically it’s just a Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivative that’s consistent
across computers to make maintenance useful. It also has a cute set of version
names based on atomic number.

~~~
umvi
> It also has a cute set of version names based on atomic number.

This reminds me of my favorite lab numbering scheme. Each computer in the lab
is assigned an element name, with the last byte of its assigned IPv4 address
being its atomic number.

So if your machine were `cobalt` your IP would be 192.168.0.27, If it were
`oxygen`, 192.168.0.16, etc.

~~~
saagarjha
“Glenn, we need you to find another transuranic element again…someone added a
new machine to the network”

~~~
jacquesm
You could add another class 'C' and start naming the networks by the elements
and the hosts by the chemical compound resulting!

~~~
type0
yeah just grow them organically

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omnifischer
I have been to several synchrotrons, central facilities. Most had stock
install of centos (whatever stable on that day). All user software was always
installed in a nfs mounted /soft/+++ so that everyone could source it and use
it. These days many of them are moving to 'xubuntu' (mainly avoiding the
unity+gnome3 mess). Many of sci-devs are using ubuntu as their daily driver -
so getting the latest python (bio), or math package, is newer in *ubuntu.

~~~
0815test
> These days many of them are moving to 'xubuntu' (mainly avoiding the
> unity+gnome3 mess).

Wouldn't Debian work a bit better and come with a better long-term stability
policy? It seems strange to rely on the *buntus unless you're specifically
relying either on proprietary software that's Ubuntu-targeted, or commercial
support from Canonical. (But there are some spaces, e.g. GPGPU compute, where
either of these might be relevant and Debian still has quite a bit of work to
do before it can be relevant.)

~~~
zokier
> Wouldn't Debian work a bit better and come with a better long-term stability
> policy?

Both have 5y LTS support?

~~~
jandrese
Ubuntu 18 is getting 10 year LTS support.

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jperras
I first learned how to operate and administer Linux-based operating systems
with Scientific Linux 3 when I helped setup the tier II compute site for the
WLCG (called LCG at the time) at my alma mater.

SL was, at the time, a thin-ish veneer around RHEL that included some
additional packages to make using and installing some very common HEP tools
(ROOT, GEANT, etc.) more palatable to academics that didn't have the time nor
the fortitude to deal with the nightmares of installing raw RPMs.

It was my first foray into the world of linux, and it was both a nightmare and
a blessing. I probably owe most of my current career to the hacking I did back
then.

Much of the usefulness of SL (and most specialty/drivatives of RHEL) have
faded over time, but I'll always be thankful for the people that put time and
effort into a very thankless job so that HEP physicists around the world could
have one less thing to worry about and focus just a bit more time on the
science.

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ncmncm
To me this looks like a success story: mainstream linux distros have caught up
to where SL was, or close enough, so that the marginal benefit of maintaining
SL is wearing thin. Maybe they are even surpassing SL in some areas.

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msla
So CERN is dropping Scientific Linux and putting their efforts into CentOS.
Will this make it "upstream" into RHEL or even Fedora?

~~~
cozzyd
CERN started transitioning to CentOS several years ago. SL was a Fermilab
Computing product at this point. I also personally switched from SL to CentOS
on my workstation years ago (partially because it took so long for SL7 to come
out) .

------
rarrrrr
Even for scientific uses on Infiniband clusters, we used Rocks (which deploys
CentOS or RHEL). There wasn't a compelling advantage to using SL, except the
year or two about a decade ago when CentOS was in chaos.

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gnufx
I see SL quite widely used in research computing. People tend to stick to one
of its point releases corresponding to RHEL initial releases plus security
updates of some sort (e.g. 7.1 round here).

