The giant particle accelerator is looking, among other things, for the theoretical Higgs boson. The process involves accelerating hydrogen atoms to the speed of light and then colliding them. A particle detector then records the resulting paths. Data to record this yearly is in the magnitude of 15 petabytes (15 million gigabytes). The Scientific Linux jointly developed at CERN helps sort the information. An LHC Computing Grid (LCG) consists of around 40,000 worldwide distributed CPUs that process the data. The participating MACs and PCs will have loaded, among other software, the CERN-adapted Scientific Linux (currently Scientific Linux CERN 4). The LCG wiki page includes instructions in how to set up the required systems and which applications grid participants need.

Contrary to what its name implies, Scientific Linux is not a collector of research software. It is rather based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CERN, Fermilab and other universities and research facilities contribute to the Linux distribution’s development and adapt it to the needs of the worldwide research community. A newer, more stable version 4.7 of the distribution appeared a week ago.

To take a peek at Scientific Linux, go to their project page. You can download the distribution as an ISO image. Those interested in CERN can go to the CERN Linux pages.