Hi Most of the software for macromolecular crystallography data analysis will run happily on Linux, OS X or Windows. However, Windows is much more GUI-based and much less open to shell scripting than UNIX based systems like Linux or OS X (DOS-Shell is very inflexible, even compared to sh or csh, let alone tcsh, zsh or bash). Even Python scripts are often not 100% portable (some of the older scripting languages like Tcl are better inthis respect, in my experience).
Having said that, nearly half the downloads of Mosflm are for the Windows version - but I have no figures on how many people actually use it, having got hold of a copy! In my hands, it works as well as on the other platforms. YMMV. If your home institution really wants you to drop Macs, then I think you have to insist on Linux with proper support - but that costs salaries! Just my two ha'porth. > 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 > >
