Modern bioinformatics analysis is normally performed on a Linux server. Most of our recipes will also work on macOS. It will also work on Windows in theory, but this is not recommended. If you do not have a Linux server, you can use a free virtual machine emulator, such as VirtualBox, to run it on a Windows/macOS computer. An alternative that we explore in the book is to use Docker as a container, which can be used on Windows and macOS.
As modern bioinformatics is a big data discipline, you will need a reasonable amount of memory; at least 8 GB on a native Linux machine, probably 16 GB on a macOS/Windows system, but more would be better. A broadband internet connection will also be necessary to download the ...
