AMMRL: TopSpin on CentOS (fwd)
Robert Peterson (peterson@mbi.ucla.edu)
Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:43:02 -0800 (PST)
Hello group,
Thanks to everyone who replied to my question about TopSpin on CentOS.
I'll just relate my experience for anyone who's interested. I've also
summarized the responses and included my original post below.
I first installed CentOS 5.1 and found that I couldn't install either
xwinnmr 3.6 or TopSpin 1.3. At first the install scripts wouldn't start.
If I clicked on the 'install' or 'startme' files in the gui, it would just
open them as text files instead of starting them. I was able to start them
with '/bin/sh install' but they immediately complained that some libraries
were missing.
At that point I decided to take the advice of respondent #1 below, and
just use RHEL. Three of my instruments are DRXs, so I can only use
TopSpin1.3, and I also wanted to install xwinnmr3.6. So I decided to
install WS3 (also I had the CDs available).
No doubt many of you will think I ought to be ashamed of myself for giving
up so easily (especially because a couple of my repondents were able to
install TopSpin 2.1 on CentOS 5). But I decided that a small loss in
self-respect for a large increase in ease of installation and use was a
trade-off I could live with.
Thanks again to everyone who responded!
-Robert
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>I haven't tried it but I'd guess it has an excellent chance of working
>for data processing, and a very good chance of working for the
>spectrometer host. But RHEL is a free download and only costs $50 a
>year for access to updates (assuming UCLA doesn't have a site license, in
>which case updates would cost you nothing), so why take the chance that
>you will see an obscure problem and Bruker will blame it on your Linux?
>Just my $0.02,
****************************************************************************
>I've been using Topspin (2.0 and now 2.1) on Centos (at the moment 4.5)
>for a couple of years now. Before that I used XwinNMR also (Centos 3). I
>have encountered no difficulties whatsoever and would thoroughly
>recommend this environment. I have tried both Gnome and KDE (Bruker
>recommend KDE) and generally prefer the extra functions of Gnome (e.g.
>automounting USB devices). KDE is however slightly less liable to
>crashes - I've never had a KDE crash, I have had (very) occasional
>problems with Gnome.
>I am sure that Centos' claim to be 100% binary compatible with RedHat is
>true.
****************************************************************************
>I don't think that using CentOS instead of RH causes any problems. Since
>I had difficulties purchasing a support subscription, I abandoned RHEL in
>favor of CentOS 3.x on an Xwin-nmr based DRX. I have not had any problems
>with it at all.
>I started to use CentOS 4.x with TopSpin 2.1, so far I have not found any
>OS related problems. Acquisition works fine. I did have to upgrade the
>SGU firmware, and replace the HPPR/2 cover module (under warranty). I
>also replaced the Matrox display card with a (surplus) Nvidia Quadro4 380
>XGL since, with the 2.0 version, the lock display took out the X server.
>That may have been fixed in 2.1, I can not reproduce it anymore using a
>remote display with a Matrox card.
>I also set up a box with CentOS 5.1 for processing only. That caused a
>problem and a minor glitches. The glitch is that the nmrsu /etc/passwd
>home directory entry of /nonexistent leads to cron/pam problems.
>Logwatch complains about pam errors: **Unmatched Entries**, chdir(HOME)
>failed: (No such file or directory). I changed it to /opt/xwinnmr, no
>more error messages.
>A bigger issue is that if you want also use Xwin-nmr during the
>transition, you cannot use a Matrox card using Overlays to enable a
>Pseudocolor display. Xorg-X11 does not start, complains about an
>undefined symbol in libxf8_32bpp.so. In addition, I found that with older
>AGP-Bus Nvidia cards (380 XGL), the Overlay configuration options lead to
>crashes with some programs (Realplayer, xine, and most likely many
>others) with the Nvidia proprietary legacy drivers (e.g.,
>NVIDIA-Linux-x86-96.43.01-pkg1.run). The Xorg-X11 Nvidia driver does not
>support Overlays, i.e., Pseudocolor is not available. A more current PCIe
>card (Quadro FX 540) works fine with the Nvidia drivers
>(NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run).
*****************************************************************************
>I have TopSpin 2.1 running on the Bruker HP Workstation the spectrometer
>came with without problems with CENT OS 5.0 (the images are called
>CentOS-5.0-i386-bin-1of6.iso etc.). Some hick ups came with the dual
>monitors and DHCP, if you need some details let me know.
*****************************************************************************
>I'm running Topspin 1.3 pl 8 on CentOS 4 without any problems. When I
>upgrade I'm going to go with the latest CentOS and topspin - as a first
>shot. So far, my experience has been good.
*****************************************************************************
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 15:01:43 -0800 (PST)
From: Robert Peterson
To: AMMRL
Subject: AMMRL: TopSpin on CentOS
Hello group,
I'm about to upgrade to TopSpin on our acquisition computers. I'm thinking
about using CentOS, which is supposed to be identical to RedHat Enterprise
in every way except for the redhat logos.
Has anyone tried this? Does anyone know which version of CentOS would be
best? Enterprise and CentOS are up to version 5.1 now, but I'm worried
that the later versions won't be compatible with TopSpin. Bruker supports
Enterprise 3 and 4 with TopSpin 2.1.
thanks in advance,
-Robert
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Robert Peterson, Ph.D.
Facility Manager
MBI-DOE Biomolecular NMR Facility
UCLA Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry
phone: (310)825-1816
fax: (310)825-0982
peterson@mbi.ucla.edu
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