What’s New?
Bio-Linux 8 incorporates the incremental improvements and packages added during the life of Bio-Linux 7, as well as new features brought by updating the base system from Ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04 and adding support for virtualised environments.
Here are some highlights:
- New Ubuntu 14.04 base system supports the latest hardware and provides up-to-date office software, multimedia, etc.
- Updated versions of key bioinformatics applications like QIIME, Mothur, Jalview, Artemis, BLAST, Bowtie-Bio tools and many more (users who do not upgrade will no longer get updates).
- Up-to-date versions of many R packages, including ggplot2, DESeq and edgeR plus updated Bioconductor and thousands more packages available for direct installation via C2D4U.
- Provision of pre-prepared templates for use on VMWare/VirtualBox.
- Replacement of NX with x2go, a more flexible version of the fast and secure remote-desktop system.
- Inclusion of the MATE desktop as a lightweight alternative to Unity.
- A more robust packaging of Galaxy, with support for loading tool-shed tools, Apache proxy, automated PostgreSQL set-up, authentication to local accounts and SFTP file uploads.
- A free kitten with every download!
- … ok, I may have lied about the kitten but we do have some gorgeous new wallpapers submitted by the user community – see below.
Thanks and Credits
Bio-Linux core development is funded by CEH National Capability funding.
The Galaxy and QIIME environments were added with support from NBAF projects in collaboration with Casey Bergman, Andrew Weightman, Peter Kille and Simon Wagstaff.
Bio-Linux relies on many other projects, both to provide the free tools on the system and to create the underlying Linux platform. In particular Debian-Med, Ubuntu and Launchpad.
Bio-Linux could not happen without the input of our user and developer community. Special thanks go to Tony Travis (Minke Informatics) for continued support of the project and several important contributions to Bio-Linux 8.
Wallpaper Images
Bio-Linux 8 ships with a selection of wallpaper images featuring environmental themes. These can be found in the /usr/share/backgrounds/ folder with filenames beginning BL_*.
All images remain copyright of the originator. The authors have agreed they may be copied and reproduced so long as attribution is given (CC-BY license).
Many thanks to the photo contributors: Stefan Buzoianu, Itaru Dekio, Christopher Dubay, James Mategko, Serguei Ponochevny, Bas van Schooten, Tony Travis, Katherine Wright and Matthias Zepper.
Present and Past Developers
The current lead developer of Bio-Linux is Tim Booth. Past developers and significant contributors include Milo Thurston, Daniel Swan, Nic Bertrand, Stewart Houten, Oliver Buckley, Bela Tiwari, Mesude Bicak, Daniel Pass, Soon Gweon and Prof. Dawn Field whose vision and guidance made the whole project possible.