SBGrid supported platforms
The SBGrid Software Suite can run on computers running Linux and macOS/OS X operating systems.
Supported RHEL-based Linux distributions (x86_64)
SBGrid software is built and tested on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x, 9.x and their community supported versions.
CentOS 7 reaches End of Life
Ten years ago we announced support for software on CentOS 7 and we’ve been building and running software on that OS ever since. On June 30, 2024, CentOS 7 reached End of Life and the last of the CentOS 7 security updates were released.
Rocky Linux and Alma Linux fill the gap left by the discontinued CentOS Linux stable release
Alma and Rocky Linux are both designed to be 100% binary compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Like RHEL, they are focused on long-term stability for production-grade platforms. SBGrid supports both Rocky versions 8 and 9, and Alma versions 8 and 9. We are using Alma Linux internally for our workstations, but both distributions are supported and should be nearly identical.
Other Linux Distributions
Many labs also use Ubuntu, Mint, Debian and OpenSuSE with SBGrid. We don't explicitly test the software on distributions other than the RHEL-based distros above, but the majority of the software is known to work on Ubuntu 20, 22 and 24. We will work to resolve problems reported by users of these Linux distributions where possible on a best-effort basis.
SBGrid is supported on Amazon Linux 2 (AL2), though a few titles are known to fail due to older OS libraries used in this distribution (ChimeraX).
Linux GPU support
We support many of the titles that run on NVIDIA GPU hardware. We include the required libraries for these applications. Typically only the latest driver for the hardware is required for these to run properly. Due to limitations in a few software titles, versions that rely on older CUDA versions (< CUDA 11.8) may fail on Ampere microarchitecture cards and later. We are working to clarify the compatibility for these applications.
NVIDIA GPU Architectures
| Architecture (Year) | Consumer-grade example | Enterprise-grade example |
|---|---|---|
| Ada Lovelace (2022) | GeForce RTX 4090 | RTX 6000 Ada Generation |
| Ampere (2020) | GeForce RTX 3080 | A100 |
| Turing (2018) | GeForce RTX 2080 | Quadro RTX 6000 |
| Volta (2017) | Titan V | Tesla V100 |
| Pascal (2016) | GeForce GTX 1080 | Tesla P100 |
| Maxwell (2014) | GeForce GTX 980 | Tesla M40 |
| Kepler (2012) | GeForce GTX 680 | Tesla K20 |
| Fermi (2010) | GeForce GTX 480 | Tesla M2090 |
| Tesla (2008) | GeForce GTX 280 | Tesla C1060 |
macOS
We build and test programs for macOS under the four most recent macOS releases and support x86_64 and arm64 'Apple Silicon' architectures.
Supported macOS versions
- macOS 15 "Sequoia" (2024)
- macOS 14 "Sonoma" (2023)
- macOS 13 "Ventura" (2022)
- macOS 12 "Monterey" (2021)
As above with earlier versions of Linux, there are many software applications that are fully functional on earlier versions of MacOSX in the SBGrid tree. We work to maintain an environment compatible with these OS versions, though they may not receive the latest applications.
Apple Silicon
"Apple Silicon" arm64 macs can run most of the software in the collection. Few native applications are currently available, but most 64-bit software works through Apple's Rosetta2 compatibility environment. Notable exceptions are applications compiled with Intel compilers (some older Rosetta and RELION versions).
32-bit applications on macOS
Sadly, macOS dropped support for 32-bit applications in macOS 10.14 "Mojave" in 2018. While we still have many 32-bit applications, they are no longer functional on supported versions of macOS.
Windows via WSL
We do not support software for Windows. However, Windows provides a Linux compatibility environment called "Windows Subsystem for Linux 2" (WSL2). WSL2 is under active development. Users have reported success with SBGrid applications working with WSL2, but we have no experience with Windows, don't have test systems, and can't provide support. If you have success with SBGrid and WSL2, let us know. For more information on WSL2, refer to the official Microsoft documentation.