RFC: Fedora Spin for Scientific Research

[Amit Saha]

Hello!

As an effort to avoid installing the same packages (like latex, emacs, 
gnuplot..) everytime I do a fresh install of a Linux distro, I decided 
to create a Fedora spin to cater the users who use Linux as their main 
workstation to help them in their research.

The software tools used is very much subjective, being determined by the 
field of research one is in. So, at this point here are some of the 
packages that is there in my spin (These have been mostly determined by 
my own field of research which is numerical simulation driven):

<packages>

#Languages, Libraries and tools
gcc
gsl
gsl-devel
boost
octave
scipy
python-matplotlib


#writing and plotting
texmaker # will install tex-live and associated utils
gnuplot
emacs
emacs-color-theme
nano
vim

</packages>

and some other misc. utils. These packages are added to the default 
Fedora 15 desktop packages i.e. with GNOME 3. As of now the ISO size is 
1.1G and takes ~4G in the Live environment.

I see from [1] that a Fedora "Spin for Science" is in the Ideas section. 
It would be great to get your feedback on this project. I would like to 
work towards its acceptance/validation as pointed out
in [2] -- by adding extra packages and anything else.

Any thoughts/comments/suggestions appreciated.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/SciTech
[2 http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/CustomSpins

Cheers,
Amit
-- 
http://echorand.me