I would look for the distro that has the most 64bit sience applications available. Sam. Mike Miller wrote: > I want to do mostly scientific work plus email on a GNU/Linux server. > Apparently all the major distros have 64-bit versions available, which > helps. Now I'm trying to decide which distro will be best for my uses. > > I know that this is the kind of thing that starts "holy wars" and I > really am not trying to start any such thing! ;-) If someone can > give me comparative information about the distros that have been > recommended, that would help. If you just want to say what you like > or prefer, you can do that, but that kind of information is probably > not going to help me much. If you can specify *why* you prefer one to > another (and you actually have experience with both!), that would be > really valuable information. > > So what are the biggest differences between these distros for a server > class machine? Would these differences affect users much or mostly > just administrators? > > To clarify what I'll be doing: Mostly numerical analysis (in > statistical genetics) using specialized packages but also using > Octave, R, and other standard GPL code. I will have about a dozen > users all running VNC (Enterprise Edition) desktops on the server. I > want to run postfix and apache and some kind of webmail server. So, I > won't be doing things like playing DVDs or music or games, so any > distro differences on that kind of stuff is irrelevant. > > Thanks in advance for any ideas you can share. > > Mike >