The biggest benefit of OS X over Linux is that you can use Office, so writing papers with colleagues is a bit simpler (that's what they're likely to be using).Įdit2: I should note that one certainly could use Windows to access remote clusters where the actual data processing will be done. I actually used to have a Mac as a laptop previously and had no issues doing anything on it (using R, programming, writing papers, etc.).

It's sometimes slightly more difficult to install something, but only slightly. Attempting to use Windows for anything serious in bioinformatics is a recipe for stress.Įdit: A Mac is fine.

:)Įither get a Mac or get a PC and install Linux. I'm still learning the etiquette of this site. apologies in advance the unnecessary use of tags. Please treat me as a total newbie and feel free to correct me on any mistakes in my line of thought above. Can you shed light on why? And are Macs enough, even though they are less powerful than PCs? I've read anecdotes that Windows is pretty useless in bioinformatics. We have a core facility that has supercomputers to run analyses in so I'll be using the laptop as a personal laptop for coursework as well as to write code when the time comes and access the supercomputers to run my data in them. So my question is, how different is OSX to Windows in the context of bioinformatics? I'll be buying a new laptop to replace my old one and I'm thinking of moving to OSX (MacBook Pro 13-inch 2015, 2.7GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM) instead of using Linux over Windows (that's the virtual machine, right?). My undergrad is a classic, broad BSc in Biology so I have practically zero experience doing bioinformatics, save for a molecular phylogenetics exercise we did in my elementary genetics course. The actual computer work will be concentrated next year so I have some amount of time to learn everything I can manage. I'm currently a first-year MSc student working in a project involving genomics.

I'm new here and I'm really interested in pursuing bioinformatics.

Is a laptop a mac or a pc