Bio-Linux was introduced and detailed in a Nature Biotechnology paper in July 2006. The distribution was a group effort by the Natural Environment Research Council in the UK. As the creators and authors point out, the analysis demands of high-throughput “-omic” (genomic, proteomic, metabolomic) science has necessitated the development of integrated computing solutions to analyze the resultant mountains of experimental data.
From this need, Bio-Linux was born. The distribution, according to its creators, serves as a “free bioinformatics workstation platform that can be installed on anything from a laptop to a large server.” The current distro version, Bio-Linux 8, is built on an Ubuntu 14.04 LTS base. Thus, the general look and feel of Bio-Linux is similar to that of Ubuntu.
In my own work as a research immunologist, I can attest to both the need for and success of the integrated software approach in Bio-Linux’s design and development. Bio-Linux functions as a true turnkey solution to data pipeline requirements of modern science. As the website mentions, Bio-Linux includes more than 250 pre-installed software packages, many of which are specific to the requirements of bioinformatic data analysis.
Read more at OpenSource.com
Check out Jack Wallen’s roundup of “Linux Distros That Serve Scientific and Medical Communities”
