Hello, I am sending this out to let people know about a new mailing-list/IRC channel which is being organized for people interested in the use of Gentoo Linux in Computational Science and Engineering applications. At this point we are just getting started, but hopefully we will grow into an organization which presents a one-stop resource about applying Gentoo to CS&E applications from the desktop to HPC clusters and grids. In addition, we will be working closely with Gentoo developers and the Core Gentoo management to provide feedback and guidance in how it can most closely meet the needs of technical end-users. Anyone who has an interest in computational science and engineering and who is interested in learning more about Gentoo or making it a better CS&E platform is most cordially invited to join About Gentoo Linux: Gentoo Linux is a source-based distribution that makes the assumption that the end-user or administrator knows more about what the system is supposed to do than the distribution developers. At the core of this is a package system known as Portage, which is similar in form to the BSD ports system. It uses the rough equivalent of an RPM spec file (called an ebuild within Gentoo) to automatically download source, compile the package (and any prerequisites) with appropriate optimizations and options as defined by the user, and install it in such a way that it can be removed or upgraded at a later time. Sometimes referred to as a meta-distribution by the developers, Gentoo initially installs a minimal environment and doesn't force the end-user to install packages and services that are unwanted or unnecessary. Also, no network daemons are started on a system unless an administrator expressly starts them. Gentoo Linux is developed by a community of developers, much as Fedora and Debian are. At present, there are over 6000 different ebuilds for different system utilities and applications in Portage. Of these, more than 100 are classified as scientific applications, including bioperl, octave, spice, and gromacs. In addition, many common scientific libraries and HPC tools are present, including Atlas, FFTW, gmp, LAM/MPI and openpbs. The main website can be found at http://www.gentoo.org. Contact information: The mailing-list is only starting now, and is rather quiet, though I hope to change that over the next couple of weeks. To subscribe, send a blank email to gentoo-science-subscribe@gentoo.org. You will get a confirmation message back. For those who want to just ask questions or find out more in a real-time setting, we are on IRC at irc.freenode.org in #gentoo-science. Of course, questions may also be directed to me at afant@geekmail.cc. Thank you for your time. Please feel free to forward this information to other groups that you feel would be interested in it. I apologize to anyone who considered this an off-topic post. Andy Fant Andrew Fant | This | "If I could walk THAT way... Molecular Geek | Space | I wouldn't need the talcum powder!" fant@pobox.com | For | G. Marx (apropos of Aerosmith) Boston, MA USA | Hire | http://www.pharmawulf.com