Scientific Linux 5.8 is a distribution rebuilt from source packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 and enhanced with extra software and tools useful in academic environments. Besides upstream updates some of the changes compared to version 5.7 include: "Intel wireless firmware (ucode) updated to a more current version; Java updated to the latest security package; the 1.4.14 release of OpenAFS, this version fixes a minor locking bug; Ralink wireless firmware updated to a more current version; yum-utils updated to current version; lsb_release -a now reports the same as SL6...etc...

About Scientific Linux

Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux, co-developed by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Although it aims to be fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, it also provides additional packages not found in the upstream product; the most notable among these are various file systems, including Cluster Suite and Global File System (GFS), FUSE, OpenAFS, Squashfs and Unionfs, wireless networking support with Intel wireless firmware, MadWiFi and NDISwrapper, Sun Java and Java Development Kit (JDK), the lightweight IceWM window manager, R - a language and environment for statistical computing, and the Alpine email client.