The OS of choice for science labs around the globe

Jun 30, 2016 23:59 GMT  ·  By

Today, June 30, 2016, Connie Sieh from the Scientific Linux development team has had the pleasure of announcing the immediate availability for download of the first Release Candidate (RC) of the upcoming Scientific Linux 6.8 operating system.

Scientific Linux 6.8 will be based on the freely distributed sources of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.8 operating system, and this first Release Candidate build tries to address the last remaining bugs before the Scientific Linux development team prepares for the unveiling of the final release later this month.

The operating system, which is the OS of choice for numerous scientific labs around the globe, has been in development for the past two weeks, during which it has received a single Beta build. There might be one more RC before Scientific Linux 6.8 is declared GOLD, but it already includes a significant number of new features.

What's inside Scientific Linux 6.8 Release Candidate 1

The first Release Candidate of Scientific Linux 6.8 brings many new and updated packages, among which we can mention OpenAFS 1.6.18 open-source implementation of the Andrew File System, the IceWM window manager, various tools for those who want to create Scientific Linux Spins, as well as yum-autoupdate for automatic daily updates.

Moreover, Scientific Linux 6.8 RC1 ships with the Cantarell font, which is required for the operating system's new graphical theme, glusterfs-server for providing cluster file system support, and various external Yum repositories, including adobe-release, atrpms-repo, elrepo-release, epel-release, rpmforge-release, and rpmfusion-free-release.

"One of the goals of Scientific Linux is to be as close to the original vendor release of Enterprise Linux. But there are several things that people want to change, for one reason or another. In order to have both worlds we have created these tweak rpm's, more commonly known as SL rpm's. These rpm's can be added or removed to add or remove a feature," reads today's announcement.

If you want an early taste of the upcoming operating system, you can download Scientific Linux 6.8 Release Candidate 1 right now via our website, where you'll find installable DVD ISO images for 32-bit (i386) and 64-bit (x86_64) hardware architectures. However, please note that this is a pre-release version, not ready for production use.

Additionally, there's currently no support for an upgrade from the rolling version of Scientific Linux 6 (sl6rolling) to Scientific Linux 6.8. The development team recommends that you install a fresh copy of Scientific Linux 6.8 when the final release is out in July.