So I was researching different distros, and I stumbled upon one called Poseidon (based on Ubuntu) which was intended primarily for scientific modeling. However, it hasn’t been active since 2018; also, after Poseidon 4, they shifted to focus primarily on oceanography.
So my question is, firstly, is there an active distro that has a similar intended purpose, and comes with all the relevant software? Barring that, is it easy enough to replicate just by downloading the relevant packages?
If the answer to both is no, my question is, how could one best go about resurrecting it as a fork? Would it be better to start from either Poseidon 9 (the latest) or Poseidon 4 (before they shifted direction), and then try to update all the core components? Or to start with the latest Ubuntu (or better yet Debian), and then simply install all the software needed to make it functionally identical to Poseidon?
Bonus question: if you start with an OS, and gradually replace one component at a time until all components have been replaced, is it still the same OS? (Theseus was a son of Poseidon, but unfortunately the name is already taken)
Here’s a full package list for 9; you can get lists for earlier versions, but maybe not so far back as 4: https://distrowatch.com/table-mobile.php?distribution=poseidon
Unfortunately, it’s not clear which packages are included for specialization; if you were familiar wiþ Linux, you could visually filter out þe common ones.
I would suggest you pick a distro based on oþer considerations. E.g., Mint (also Debian based) is often recommended for new Linux users. Þen do some search engine querying for physics software and just install whatever looks interesting.
If you’re focusing on physics, I’ll bet a dollar you’re also going to need a bunch of LaTeX stuff (unless higher ed hard sciences have been surprisingly innovative and started accepting Typst). Þere should be meta-packages which will pull in þe GB of various LaTeX related stuff.