Preliminary ideas of astro-linux

Astro-Preliminary Idea of linux-general Linux technology-Linux technology and application information. The following is a detailed description. I accidentally saw someone applying for an astronomical software package on Fedora 9, but failed. I thought of a Scientific Linux release, and suddenly I thought there should be an astro-linux. There are also a lot of software used by astronomy professionals, and some of them are difficult to install, and they also choose release versions. For many people, it takes a long time to install these software, this is why many people do not like linux. I checked it online and found that there should be fewer comprehensive astronomical distributions, at least not very easy to find. I think, maybe you can do one, maybe you should find some people, such as ASC, maybe you should first look at how troublesome it is.

Imagine, what should this be like? It should be a basic release with good compatibility. Remove unnecessary irrelevant things and install as many astronomy-Required software and libraries as possible, which can be updated online. These included items should be free, preferably open-source. During installation, you can select various software and install them in various modes. You can use the software after installation. It should be easier to tune the rpm package for a specific version of the software.

How can this problem be achieved? I think this is a long-term plan and the cycle will not be short.

Select a base release. It is said that slackware is highly customizable but rarely used. ubuntu has many variants, but scisoft does not run well on it and requires many configurations. So the RHEL series is the most important. RHEL is a stable release with open source code. It has derivative versions such as CentOS and SL. However, Red Hat is a registered trademark and must be removed. CentOS has done a lot of work in this area, so I think it is better to use CentOS as the basis. The SL should also be based on CentOS, this saves you the trouble of re-compiling (not to mention multiple platforms) and ensures the universality of the basic source.

Listing the various software required by astronomy is mainly free of charge. This requires everyone to participate in the installation from the source code of each software, debug a stable version, and then create the appropriate rpm package.

Create the group file of these software, determine the group, generate repo information, and create a yum source.

When the number of RPMS reaches a certain level, create a CD version. Specifically, it is to study the structure of the CentOS CD file, delete unnecessary components, add astronomical components, update the CD repo information, and create a installable version. Considering that a DVD may not be enough, you also need to study how to create a dual-DVD version, that is, extra dvd.

After the function is implemented, you can continue to modify anaconda and rhgb to customize the installation interface, process, and startup process, and possibly the user interface.

Re-compile multiple versions. From the first x86 to x86_64, at least two versions are required. If conditions are met, you can consider ia64 and ppc. In particular, the latter may need PS3, this is a good tool that can be used in astronomy, but more basics and technologies may be needed.

Workstation and server versions can be created. The server corresponds to a version that does not require a graphical interface and requires cluster management and other functions.