Re: Future of Scientific Linux

[Ian Murray]

On 11/02/14 19:49, Konstantin Olchanski wrote:
 On Sun, Feb 09, 2014 at 04:44:22AM -0800, Henrique C. S. Junior wrote:
 I'd like to know what people think about (possible) future scenarios for 
 Scientific Linux. Let's say:
  - If SL becomes a CentOS SIG (builded using the CentOS Core) does it still 
 worth the time or will you change to CentOS?
  - If nothing changes and SL continue to be build from SRPMs (with a huge 
 delay compared to CentOS)
  - If SL dies to be replaced by CentOS at CERN and Fermi Lab
 Feel free to add new scenarios.

 Perhaps you do not know where the legs grow from of SL/SLC (CERN).

 (omitting a few minor details) (hah, minor details, yes!)

 SL/SLC is a joint project of CERN, FermiLab and other major Govt labs
 to provide high-energy physics experiments that have large data analysis
 requirements with a Linux distribution suitable for running on large computing
 farms (think CERN, LHC machine, ATLAS experiment).

 For historical reasons (hah!) this distribution is based on Red Hat Linux 
 (from
 before the E). Given the massive installed base at CERN, BNL, FermiLab and
 elsewhere (even at TRIUMF), and given the general inertia of big projects,
 do not expect a switch to Debian.

 So even if SL tanks or FermiLab tanks, SLC (CERN) will continue. Even if Red 
 Hat tanks,
 SLC will probably continue. If you have any doubts, consider the size of
 the CERN LHC machine, (in km, in $$$, in person-count, in TB of data produced)
 and understand that CERN have a computing departement of matching size.

 Given that CERN-affiliated projects buy massive amounts of computer equipment
 from IBM, Dell, HP,  co, vendor support for CERN Linux will continue, too.


I thought a statement came out recently, along the lines of

SL 6.x - stays the same (confirmed)
SL 7.x - Possible CentOS SIG (amongst other possibilities)

What more info does anybody need right now? (Esp around 6.x, which is
all that is in use right now)

Re: Future of Scientific Linux

[Nico Kadel-Garcia]

On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 7:44 AM, Henrique C. S. Junior
henrique...@yahoo.com wrote:
 I'd like to know what people think about (possible) future scenarios for
 Scientific Linux. Let's say:
  - If SL becomes a CentOS SIG (builded using the CentOS Core) does it still
 worth the time or will you change to CentOS?

Stick with SL. CentOS, historically, has mapped one-to-one with the
contents of RHEL. SL has been willing to add very, very useful
components to the basic build, particularly hooks kto access
third-party repositories such as EPEL and RPMfusion. Those are
invaluable to work I do every day, and save me work burining new
virtual machines or doing base installs.

  - If nothing changes and SL continue to be build from SRPMs (with a huge
 delay compared to CentOS)

See above. The delay is not huge, and I'm often forced to schedule
package updates for maintenance windows, anyway. A churning set  of
updates is begging for environment instability in production
environments. I've often locked down snapshots of yum repositories,
and so that all production hosts work from the same locked down repo,
and left ongoing updates active in a separate repo. The RPM contents
are hardlinked among them to save disk space on the yum server or
network file share: it's pretty effective.

  - If SL dies to be replaced by CentOS at CERN and Fermi Lab

 Feel free to add new scenarios.

CERN manages to create a black hole and the Earth is eaten, and any
astronauts in orbit fly off and colonize Europa?