!! Important - Make sure you have read and followed these instructions before the course !!
In this workshop we (ie you!) will be using the software package "ScrumPy - Metabolic Modelling in Python" and you will need to have this running on your laptop. If your laptop is running Debian (or a derivative such as Ubuntu), then you can download ScrumPy here and stop reading this page.
If you have any other operating system, then we reccomend using VirtualBox as described below. If you already have some experience in installing software from source on other Unix-like operating systems(Linux/FreeBSD/macOS etc.), then get in touch with one of the teaching staff.
Virtual Box
VirtualBox is a software package that allows one operating system to be run "inside" another one. We can supply the neccessary files to allow VirtualBox to run Linux with ScrumPy preinstalled on your laptop, but you must install the VirtualBox software itself before the course.
Installing VirtualBox
VirtualBox is free software and can be downloaded from the main website here, it may also be available from your computer's software repository (aka app store).You will also need to install the "virtual box extensions" package.
Once you have downloaded and installed it, it is essential that you check that it can run virtual machines. Simply starting the program does not mean that it is working! In order to test VirtualBox you will need to download an appropriate image (.ova) file and ensure that you can import, and then run it in VirtualBox. You can find general instructions for doing this here. You can download the ova file for the course from our website here (64 bit machine) or here (32 bit machine)
If you wish to download these files, then please do so outside UK office hours to avoid putting too much load on our network. Alternatively suitable ova file are readily available from a variety of websites (e.g. osboxes, virtualboxes amongst many others). Regardless of which you choose make sure that you can import and run the guest OS.
From our own experinece the most common problem for VirtualBox failing to run a guest os is either configuration of VirtualBox itself (see here for configuration instructions), or because of incorrect settings in the BIOS (usually virtualisation not being enabled). Exactly how to fix such problems varies from machine to machine, and furthermore many institutional machines will have their bios password protected. For this reason it will be very difficult for us to advise you during the workshop. Therefore, if you have any problems running a VirtualBox image, please speak to your IT support staff before attending the workshop, if at all possible.