SuSE beginner

I've just installd SusE 8.0 on my home computer. I've installed Octave and Kpl and Kmathplot. I'm a Physics graduate student eager to grab as much scintific s/w packages as I can! I'm paricularly interested in any other s/w package that deals with O.D.Es and P.D.Es and BioChemistry that is available with SuSE 8.0 from the distribution kit or from the web. How many of this s/w packages can be installed and run on Red Hat ??? Thank you in advance for your attention. MEM