[Biodevelopers] Workstation Selection for Bioinformatics Research

[Chip Coward]

Greetings,

    I am a researcher in bioinformatics at Drexel University and we are
setting up a computational lab for research and teaching in Computational
Systems Biology/Bioinformatics. We are looking for workstations for our lab
using existing software tools or developing new tools to perform molecular
modeling/visualization (e.g. RasMol/Protein Explorer), searching the genome,
stochastic modelling/cellular automata, ect. We are considering both SUN
workstations and Dell workstations (Precision 450/Precision 650) although we
would be open to consider other platforms if there are compelling reasons. I
am writing to get input/information that will help us make a decision on
platform selection. I am leaning toward selecting the Dell Workstation due
to the theme that prevades these email lists about use of Linux which seems
to be the way the bioinformatics community is heading. If we purchased the
Dell system I would configure it to support both Windows and Linux under the
assumption that by supporting both operating systems, we would have more
options/flexibility for tool selection.

   I would appreciate any thoughts or opinions that would help in our
platform selection.

   Thanks.

         Chip Coward