RE: NONMEM as a dll

From: Niclas Jonsson <niclas@c255t.ucsf.EDU> Subject: RE: NONMEM as a dll Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 11:16:53 -0800 (PST) We are using Linux as the operating system on two of our (NONMEM) computing servers. The first is a single processor P2 333 MhZ with 96Mb of RAM and the second is a dual processor P2 333 MhZ machine with 164Mb RAM. In addition, I have Linux installed on my laptop (Pentium 233 MhZ, 96Mb). In my experience, Linux is a *very* suitable system for running NONMEM on, both in terms of stability (it is certainly more stable than Win95 but also more stable than Win NT (personal experience)) and price (the Linux OS and fortran compiler is free and the hardware is the same as a regular Win95/NT PC). My impression is also that the same run is faster under Linux than under Win95/NT, although I haven't formally benchmarked this. As for Ahmeds question about the compatibility of the classical unix programs (awk,sed and so on). In my experience the answer is yes! Except for path specifications, I can run my perl, sed, awk and csh scripts on both the Linux machines and our HP workstations. Linux comes in a number of different distributions, which can generally be obtained without cost from the Internet. They can also be purchased (and you pay for the distribution media and documentation) fairly cheaply. The latter way of obtaining Linux is probably the best unless you have experience installing Linux and/or unix-like systems administration. Information about Linux in general can be obtained from the URL http://www.linux.org Personally I use the RedHat 5.1 distribution, which comes with the GNU Fortran compiler. With this compiler, NONMEM V compiles "out of the box". As Pascal points out, octave is a free "MathLab equivalent". But the real thing is also available (i.e. MathLab) for Linux, as is Mathematica, S-PLUS (version 5.0) and a lot of other technical programs. Niclas Jonsson