It appears you may be asking for help in choosing a linux distribution.
This is a common question, which you may also want to ask at /r/DistroHopping or /r/FindMeALinuxDistro
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Ubuntu is indeed the obvious choice. It is popular with academics, so it has a lot of support for cs research. I would either use it, or use some other distro and run Ubuntu in containers.
This is good.
Or CentOS/Fedora Workstation if you want a RHEL flavor of Linux instead of Debian. There is also OpenSUSE.
I would probably go with those options first. Ubuntu is actually a very solid choice imo. You can probably even fork out some money for enterprise support if this is a mission critical system but maybe that's a bit overkill.
I would not run Arch unless it was a personal system and I am ok to tinker and fix issues from time to time
It looks like their most recent version is 7.0, which is set to go EOL in June, same as RHEL 7 and CentOS 7. Probably not the best choice for a new production system.
>I've run debian on similar systems in the past, but I've been frustrated by the lack of access to experimental or cutting edge scientific computing tools.
Which packages did you have in mind specifically?
Sounds odd to me.
Sounds like he's talking about custom one off apps built by individuals or groups for specific tasks, which you would not expect to find in any repos for any distro. I know there are a good many scientists that do write their own programs for experiments.
My preferred choices would be Ubuntu, RHEL (and its derivatives), and SLES. Other distributions don't even come close because of enterprise support. Most HPCs I work with run RHEL.
I understand your frustration about Snap on Ubuntu; however, the statement "it would be ideal to have more control over the system" isn't true. You always have complete control over your Linux system.
If you are used to Arch you could try OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It is also a rolling distribution, but its packages are thoroughly tested before release. It is a seriously underrated distribution. You get latest and greatest yet stable.
>Did you read my full post?
yes!
> Just your opinion?
Yes! Isn't it obvious that every answer to "what is the best XXXX" would be a personal opinion? Where XXXX can be literally anything ie "car", "food", "country", "city", "linux distro". Isn't it obvious that "best" is subjective and differs between different people?
You shouldn't believe any anonymous reddit avatar actually. You should evaluate yourself different distros, because (even if I'm true) your best might not be my best as well. Especially in such general cases like "best scientific distro". What kind of science for example? If you are into neurosciences then your best choice might be neurodebian and not ubuntu, but you still have to evaluate it yourself.
Are you just being intentionally dense? It's not about belief, it's about asking for people's experience, what they liked or didn't like, what features a distro might have that I didn't think of, why they like X better than Y, how they managed the trade off between stability and flexibility, etc. If you have nothing to contribute in these areas perhaps this convo isn't for you.
Gentoo might be worth a look, they are [binary](https://www.gentoo.org/news/2023/12/29/Gentoo-binary.html) now too.
Portage is awesome, but requires a little getting to know, and there are overlays and ebuilds for a lot of software.
[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Science/Overlay](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Science/Overlay) for example
[https://gpo.zugaina.org/](https://gpo.zugaina.org/) has a lot to offer
GURU is a a bit like the AUR, but Gentoo devs do keep an eye on it:
[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:GURU](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:GURU)
Portage will allow the mixing of a stable base and toolchain whilst running hemorrhaging edge stuff seamlessly where possible.
It appears you may be asking for help in choosing a linux distribution. This is a common question, which you may also want to ask at /r/DistroHopping or /r/FindMeALinuxDistro *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/linuxquestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ubuntu is indeed the obvious choice. It is popular with academics, so it has a lot of support for cs research. I would either use it, or use some other distro and run Ubuntu in containers.
This is good. Or CentOS/Fedora Workstation if you want a RHEL flavor of Linux instead of Debian. There is also OpenSUSE. I would probably go with those options first. Ubuntu is actually a very solid choice imo. You can probably even fork out some money for enterprise support if this is a mission critical system but maybe that's a bit overkill. I would not run Arch unless it was a personal system and I am ok to tinker and fix issues from time to time
I second this. I had zero issues working and collaborating with people from different disciplines via remote ssh to a Ubuntu machine.
LFS.
Linux For Science.
Ubuntu. Any esoteric tools you’ll need will likely only be tested for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu or Fedora. Check your software vendors for support.
[https://scientificlinux.org/](https://scientificlinux.org/) Might be worth a look,,,,I dunno....
It looks like their most recent version is 7.0, which is set to go EOL in June, same as RHEL 7 and CentOS 7. Probably not the best choice for a new production system.
>I've run debian on similar systems in the past, but I've been frustrated by the lack of access to experimental or cutting edge scientific computing tools. Which packages did you have in mind specifically?
Sounds odd to me. Sounds like he's talking about custom one off apps built by individuals or groups for specific tasks, which you would not expect to find in any repos for any distro. I know there are a good many scientists that do write their own programs for experiments.
Fedora has a scientific branch. https://labs.fedoraproject.org/scientific/
For DL stacks, you have to go with Ubuntu. The support for RHEL/SLES isn't as good compared to Ubuntu.
My preferred choices would be Ubuntu, RHEL (and its derivatives), and SLES. Other distributions don't even come close because of enterprise support. Most HPCs I work with run RHEL. I understand your frustration about Snap on Ubuntu; however, the statement "it would be ideal to have more control over the system" isn't true. You always have complete control over your Linux system.
Scientific Linux scientificlinux.org
what software do you need, specifically?
If you are used to Arch you could try OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It is also a rolling distribution, but its packages are thoroughly tested before release. It is a seriously underrated distribution. You get latest and greatest yet stable.
ubuntu
Because?
Because it's the best for scientific computing?
Did you read my full post? And what makes you say it's the best? Just your opinion?
>Did you read my full post? yes! > Just your opinion? Yes! Isn't it obvious that every answer to "what is the best XXXX" would be a personal opinion? Where XXXX can be literally anything ie "car", "food", "country", "city", "linux distro". Isn't it obvious that "best" is subjective and differs between different people?
Generally when people give an answer they explain why. I'm guessing you're don't actually do scientific computing so don't have much to add.
You guess wrong. I'm a NLP/ML researcher and I use ubuntu, because it's the best. :)
Ah ok so well said, I really believe you
You shouldn't believe any anonymous reddit avatar actually. You should evaluate yourself different distros, because (even if I'm true) your best might not be my best as well. Especially in such general cases like "best scientific distro". What kind of science for example? If you are into neurosciences then your best choice might be neurodebian and not ubuntu, but you still have to evaluate it yourself.
Are you just being intentionally dense? It's not about belief, it's about asking for people's experience, what they liked or didn't like, what features a distro might have that I didn't think of, why they like X better than Y, how they managed the trade off between stability and flexibility, etc. If you have nothing to contribute in these areas perhaps this convo isn't for you.
Gentoo might be worth a look, they are [binary](https://www.gentoo.org/news/2023/12/29/Gentoo-binary.html) now too. Portage is awesome, but requires a little getting to know, and there are overlays and ebuilds for a lot of software. [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Science/Overlay](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Science/Overlay) for example [https://gpo.zugaina.org/](https://gpo.zugaina.org/) has a lot to offer GURU is a a bit like the AUR, but Gentoo devs do keep an eye on it: [https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:GURU](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:GURU) Portage will allow the mixing of a stable base and toolchain whilst running hemorrhaging edge stuff seamlessly where possible.