Computational Biophysics Workshop - Champaign, Aug. 10-14, 2009

Laptop Requirements

The TCBG Workshop Tutorials require up-to-date hardware, operating systems, and software versions. Minimum requirements for laptops are provided below. Configurations that vary from the requirements may function poorly, or not at all.

This list below will be updated as more information is available.

Hardware Requirements
  • Windows
    • Operating System: Windows Vista, XP or 2000
    • Memory: 512 MB RAM
    • Processor: Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz CPU (or comparable)
    • Graphics card: nVidia Geforce Ti4600, or comparable
  • Mac
    • Operating System: Mac OS X 10.3 or greater
    • Memory: 512 MB RAM
    • Processor: G4 Processor or any Intel Mac
    • Graphics card: Macintosh computers often come with sufficient graphics processing power, so no additional card is necessary
  • Linux
    • Operating System: Any reliable Linux distribution released within the last three years.
    • Memory: 512 MB RAM
    • Processor: Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz CPU (or comparable)
    • Graphics card: nVidia Geforce Ti4600, or comparable

Please note the above are bare minimum requirements; more power and memory is desirable for all the above systems. For example, 512 MB RAM on a Mac will be functional, but very slow-going through the tutorials!

Software Requirements

Visual Molecular Dynamics - VMD
For molecular modelling, the tutorials use VMD. You can download the latest version of VMD for your operating system from http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Development/Download/download.cgi?PackageName=VMD. See the User and Installation guides for installation instructions.

Nanoscale Molecular Dynamics - NAMD
For numerical simulation, the tutorials use NAMD. You can download the latest version of NAMD for your operating system from http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Development/Download/download.cgi?PackageName=NAMD. See the NAMD User's Guide for installation and usage instructions.

Plotting Program
For some tutorials, a program for plotting graphs is necessary. Some recommended utilities include:

Text Editor
A basic text editor program is used in some tutorial. Most likely one came with your operating system. Some options for editors are liste below:
  • Windows: NotePad
  • Unix: nedit
  • Mac: TextEdit