Re: [ccp4bb] Computer hardware and OS "survey"

[Roger Rowlett]

Title: Computer hardware and OS "survey"

Well, Coot, O, Pymol, CNS, and CCP4i, as well as Open-EPMR all have Windows versions. The main issues with a Windows workflow are (1) jobs will run significantly slower than in Linux, and (2) the DOS command shell is not as powerful as Linux, although it can be extended by installing DOS versions of Linux commands and utilities. You will also lose access to a number of Linux(Unix)-only XRD tools, but those are getting fewer each year. It's also easier, more stable, and more secure to set up a laboratory data server in Linux than in Windows. You will also find that you can get excellent computing performance out of fairly modest hardware in Linux compared to Windows. I'm not sure there is much "institutional support" required for Linux if you know how to install your own OS and software. All I need from my networking people is a hole in the firewall for my MAC address and SSH port. After that, there is not much for IT to do for me other than stay out of the way. Ubuntu has made it a lot easier than it has been to maintain your own Linux systems, but I'm still currently wedded to Fedora. The main Linux headache is hardware support, especially printers and graphics drivers for Nvidia cards, but even that is relatively painless now. Cheers, Roger S. Rowlett Professor Colgate University Presidential Scholar Department of Chemistry Colgate University 13 Oak Drive Hamilton, NY 13346 tel: (315)-228-7245 ofc: (315)-228-7395 fax: (315)-228-7935 email: rrowl...@mail.colgate.edu Link,Todd M wrote: My home institution, in effort to cut costs, is making an effort to push those of us on Macs onto PCs.  Up till now they have been very generous via a lease program for computer hardware, but that is changing given the current economics.  The institution currently does not support Linux so we are limited to Mac and Windows OS.   We certainly make  use of William Scotts crystallography on OS X (thanks so much!)  so our main argument is that we would have far more support “out there” for crystallography on the Mac than we would have for on Windows.  But to be fair (and hopefully bolster our argument) I should find out if that is true.  I did not find an equal web support page for Windows. A volunteer survey will be distorted (probably by Mac fanboys like me) so I am asking for peoples best guesstimate as to what % use of  Mac, Windows, or Linux is out there for data processing and model building.  Our core programs are coot, o, pymol, cns, and ccp4 but we certainly make occasional use of other crystallography programs out there (solve, epmr...) Also what are the relative crystallography support for Mac vs. Windows. Thanks in advance. Todd -- Todd M. Link Assistant Professor MD Anderson Cancer Center Univ. of Texas (713) 834-6394