One quick way we have set-up Macs with Galaxy is to use BioLinux (http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk/tools/bio-linux). It is a free Ubuntu system image loaded with lots of Bioinformatics software (including Galaxy). We run it on the Mac using Oracle Virtual Box (there are other free VM platforms too). For us the key has been plenty of RAM, as well as disk. 1TB of data can sound big, however when you start downloading multiple data sets (e.g. public data for comparisons, backups/versioning, etc.), it can be used up rapidly. With Galaxy, when it comes to RAM and Disk (and compute cores), more is always better.
You will need to learn some basic Unix commands to get disks connected to the VM, and setup Galaxy users. Otherwise it works pretty much right 'out-of-the-box' for a local Galaxy (i.e. with the browser running in the VM). Modifying Galaxy for robust multiple-users does require some changes (e.g. database, web server, etc.) needing a bit more advanced Unix (or at least a willingness to dive-in and try things).
Christopher
From: Suzanne Gomes on Galaxy Biostar [mailto:notifications@biostars.org]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 8:25 AM
To: Dubay, Christopher
Subject: [galaxy-biostar] Installing Local Galaxy Instance - Requirements for Mac
Activity on a post you are following on Galaxy Biostar<http: biostar.usegalaxy.org="">
User Suzanne Gomes<http: biostar.usegalaxy.org="" u="" 1372=""/> wrote Question: Installing Local Galaxy Instance - Requirements for Mac<http: biostar.usegalaxy.org="" p="" 8031=""/>:
Hi,
I have been using the public galaxy server to run analyses for some time. It's been really useful, but now I've run out of space to continue my analysis. So I am looking at options for a galaxy instance for our lab. The slipstream option sounds very convenient, but I don't know that we have enough data to justify it for just our small lab. I am looking for enough space to run RNA-seq analysis and SNP analysis on two projects (each project generating about 200 million base pairs of paired-end reads).
So my question is, to install a local instance of galaxy on a Mac, what kind of Mac would do the job (in terms of processor, memory, etc)? I feel like if we got the 1TB storage, that would be more than enough space for me to run my analyses. It seems like this would be cheaper than paying for cloud space for an extended period of time.
I'm also not very computer literate, so I'm wondering how difficult it would be to set up the local instance, and install the Tuxedo suite, SAMtools, and some other tools for basic filtering, sorting etc. Has anyone who doesn't have a lot of computer experience tried doing this? How difficult was it?
Any opinions on the subject are greatly appreciated!
