Garlic
The Most Portable Molecular Visualization Program in Unix World
garlic, free molecular visualization program,
protein structure, DNA structure, PDB,
molecular rendering, biological macromolecule,
unix, linux, free software download, open source software,
unofficial release,
Damir Zucic.
The statement that garlic is the most portable molecular visualization program
in unix world might look quite bold at the first sight, but it is based on
serious arguments. Garlic requires only three libraries to run: the standard C
library (libc), the standard math library (libm), and the standard X11
library (libX11). These libraries are available on every serious unix
or unix compatible system. All other programs, (except one:
mdxv
) require
some additional binary libraries.
Compiling and/or installing a program which requires numerous libraries may
turn into nightmare. Not only that all these libraries must be present on
your system: a version number is important too! And if you manage to compile
and/or install the program, it may behave strange when you try to use it:
there is a chance that one or more libraries were not tested enough before
shipping, causing core dumps and other runtime problems.
Check
the list
of freely available molecular visualization programs for unix and unix clones.
This page lists also the libraries required to run each of these programs.