Linux Recommendations at the Department of Earth, Environmental, & Planetary Sciences

We now use Ubuntu for almost everything since they are the only distribution you need. We are even running it on our newer high end AMD EPYC servers in our EEPS High Performance Computing (HPC) Laboratory. Note, however, that the big 768 core cluster is still using an old version of CentOS, so binary executables compiled on newer versions of Ubuntu will probably NOT run on our cluster. However, they should run on the high performance Dell AMD EPYC servers (imbrium, mantle, falkor). If you want to run software on the cluster, it will probably have to be recompiled on the master node there.

When selecting an Ubuntu version, I recommend using a LTS (Long Term Support) version like 22.04 (Jammy) or 24.04 (Noble). If you are still running 20.04 (Focal) you should consider upgrading to one of the newer LTS versions. Braver souls can test out the other versions which are updated more frequently.

A nice, easy to use desktop variant of Ubuntu is Linux Mint which some might find easier to use, especially Windows users. The Cinnamon version looks the nicest, but uses the most resources, Xfce is lightest but most simplistic, and MATE is more of the middle ground. For fast downloads of Ubuntu, Mint and other Linux distributions visit the mirrors at:

plug-mirror.rcac.purdue.edu (Purdue University)

I also have USB flash or DVD media with Ubuntu/Mint in my office if you are interested.

Any RedHat/CentOS stalwarts should migrate to something like AlmaLinux if they want to stick to the RPM world of Linux. To try out many other less popular distributions, visit Distrowatch.com and download them from the same site.


Hugh Chou, hugh@wustl.edu, Room 289, 935-4012
EEPS HPC Laboratory - EEPS Computing