[Bio-Linux] Installing Bio-Linux packages under Ubuntu

[Tony Travis]

Hello, Bio-Linux'ers

As part of my NuGO 'Black-Box' project, I've been comparing Ubuntu 
'Dapper' and Debian 'Etch': One reason why I hesitated to adopt Ubuntu 
'Dapper', initially, is that the Bio-Linux 'base-directories' package 
has a dependency on Debian 'xlibs' which is not present in Ubuntu 
'Dapper'. This package is, however, present in Ubuntu 'Hoary', so I 
installed the 'xlibs' package from 'Hoary' into 'Dapper' and Bio-Linux 
now installs and runs OK under Ubuntu (with the sun-java packages).

The 'xlibs' package is a transitional package, which has dependencies 
that help when installing X11, but it only contains documentation in 
Ubuntu 'hoary'. It is absent in 'Dapper' and is deprecated in 'Etch'.

Another question I have is that although it's possible to run 32-bit 
binaries in the 64-bit (amd64) version of 'Dapper' I can't install the 
Bio-Linux packages from the NEBC repository because "apt" wants to find 
amd64 binaries: Is there some apt magic I can use to force an amd64 
Ubuntu system to use the 32-bit packages for i386 in your repository?

So far, I've just downloaded the 32-bit debs manually onto the 64-bit 
system, and tried them out.

I think that Bio-Linux is a great project, and I've already found it 
very useful for my own work. However, I'd like to see it flourish in a 
more platform-independent way. I'd be interested to hear from anyone 
else using Bio-Linux packages on non-NEBC-Dell Bio-Linux machines. We're 
running it on a variety of different hardware including uniprocessor and 
SMP: i386, Athlon, Athlon64, Opteron and on several different software 
platforms including Red Hat 9, Debian 'Etch' and Ubuntu 'Dapper'.

Best wishes,

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis,                     |  mailto:ajt at rri.sari.ac.uk
Rowett Research Institute,          |    http://www.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn,          |   phone:+44 (0)1224 712751
Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK.    |     fax:+44 (0)1224 716687