If you have found Bill Scott's pages on Macs useful, you may find his
Ubuntu pages similarly useful: another reason to go with linux over
windows. There are also people creating rpm packages to easily install
the likes of coot on Fedora/RHEL/Centos, another well supported option.
Also, phenix, which seems to have significant popularity these days,
does not run on windows.
Engin
On 5/1/09 7:58 AM, Roger Rowlett wrote:
> 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: [log in to unmask]
>
> 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
>>
>
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