Fermi Linux is the generic name for Linux distributions that are created and used at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). These releases have gone through different names: ''Fermi Linux'', ''Fermi Linux LTS'', ''LTS'', ''Fermi Linux STS'', ''STS'', ''Scientific Linux Fermi'', ''SLF''. For the purposes of this entry they can be used interchangeably to designate a version of Linux specific to Fermilab. At the current time, the only officially supported Fermi Linux is Scientific Linux Fermi, which is based on

Scientific Linux Scientific Linux (SL) was a Linux distribution produced by Fermilab, CERN, DESY and by ETH Zurich. It is a free and open-source operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This product is derived from the free and open-source software m ...

History

Fermi Linux started out as an extension of the PC Farms Pilot Project spearheaded by Connie Sieh. A Fermilab initiative to seek out cost effective computing for the

Tevatron The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator (active until 2011) in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (also known as ''Fermilab''), east of Batavia, Illinois, and is the second highest energy particle collider ...

. Continuing to update the SGI and AIX hardware for the computing needs of that experiment was very expensive. Initial builds of Fermi Linux were merely

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used commercial open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. Red Hat published the first non-beta release ...

with some things turned off or some extra packages added. With the release of

, Fermi Linux became a 'site' specific build of Scientific Linux.

Releases

Support policy

Fermi Linux follows the Scientific Linux life cycle regarding support and updates. There is a vibrant Linux community at Fermilab. This includes dedicated email lists and regular meetings provided by the Scientific Linux development team.

Fermi Linux LTS

Fermi Linux LTS is in essence

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a Commercial software, commercial Open-source software, open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commerce, commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-6 ...

, recompiled. Workers in

Fermilab Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory specializing in high-energy parti ...

took the source code from Red Hat Enterprise Linux in srpm form and recompiled them resulting in binaries in rpm form with the only restrictions being the license from the original source code. They are bundling these binaries into a Linux distribution that is as close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as they can get. The goal is to ensure that if a program runs and is certified on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, then it will run on the corresponding Fermi Linux release.

External links

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References