Binary packages for scientific research on RHEL/CentOS

[Jason Bacon <bacon4000%gmail.com@localhost>]

Binary packages aimed at research computing and HPC are now available 
for RHEL/CentOS 6 and 7:

    http://uwm.edu/hpc/software-management/

These are more or less static package sets with a different prefix for 
each quarterly build, e.g. /sharedapps/pkg-2017Q1. This layout allows 
researchers to use the same package versions for the duration of 
long-term studies (this is critical in many research projects) while 
newer packages can be deployed alongside them on the same system.

I also posted instructions for our pbulk setup, which uses a pristine OS 
installation image in a chroot env.  Many thanks to everyone who offered 
advice as I was experimenting with pbulk.

I'm hoping the availability of these packages will spur a new level of 
interest in pkgsrc within the research computing community.  I know for 
a fact that pkgsrc has enormous potential here, as I've watched many 
researchers struggle with software installations for the past 17 years, 
especially on enterprise Linux, which has a virtual monopoly in HPC.

With this infrastructure in place, the work of creating many new 
scientific packages will now become our primary focus.

Comments and contributions are always welcome!

Regards,

    Jason

--
Earth is a beta site.