The primary purpose of Scientific Linux is to produce a common Linux distribution for various labs and universities around the world, thus reducing duplicated effort. The main goals are to have everything compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with only minor additions and changes, and to allow easy customization for a site, without disturbing the Linux base.[4]
The distribution is called Scientific Linux because it was initially made and used by scientific labs. It does not contain a large collection of scientific software.[2][5] However, it provides good compatibility to install such software.