The Automatic Linux + ARB Installation DVD: ARBuntu
- Click to enlarge
Current version: 4.0
- New ARBuntu 4.0 (64-bit) released in December 2012 for EUR 89.00 (excl. VAT)
- Please note: we do not maintain a parallel 32-bit version of ARBuntu anymore
How to order ARBuntu ...
What is ARBuntu?
- A standardized ARB platform for beginners and advanced users
- Automatic installation of a fully-featured Linux operating system plus ARB and all its dependencies by few clicks in only 10-15 minutes
Features:
- Based on the ARB 5.5 release from November 2012 and the
Kubuntu 12.04 LTS (long-term support) Linux distribution from April 2012
- SILVA "demo" databases for SSU (16S/18S) and LSU (23S/28S) rRNA sequences (SSU Ref NR 111, LSU Ref 111, LTP SSU 108, LTP LSU 102) plus pre-calculated pt-servers for all datasets (!) and a detailed documentation (
ARBuntu screenshot)
- Live DVD -> hardware compatibility can be checked without installation!
- All the additional software offered by the Kubuntu project plus the free tree viewer and finalizer FigTree (
ARBuntu screenshot)
- Installation guide plus 6 month installation and bug support
Important Remark (on ARB memory requirements)
ARB is a very memory(=RAM)-intensive application, at least if you are working with large ARB databases such as the current rRNA gene datasets (see www.arb-silva.de). Reason is that ARB represents a in-memory database.
Quite recently, 32-bit operating systems and software had dominated the end-user computer market. The main characteristic of 32-bit systems is that they can only address a maximum of 4 GB of RAM. Consequently, if an ARB database requires more than 4 GB of RAM you even can not open it anymore!
This limitation can be resolved by setting up a 64-bit operating system which can handle a nearly unlimited amount of RAM. These systems are becoming more and more standard now. However, also the software itself must come in a 64-bit version to be able to use more than 4 GB of RAM. This is realized for the ARB software by the ARBuntu system since release 3.1 (of course, you can install the 64-bit ARBuntu also if you have less than 4GB of RAM available).
Please note that you also require 64-bit hardware (processor) to set up such a 64-bit system. However, since several years standard processors run in both modes - using a recent machine there should be no problem.
To bring some light into the dark concerning the ARB hardware demands we have compiled a table which shows you the 
ARB Memory (RAM) Requirements (ver. 1.4) for the recent SILVA rRNA gene datasets.
ARBuntu Release History
Release | ARB version | Distribution | Release | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
version 4.0 | ARB 5.5 release from November 2012 (64-bit) | Kubuntu 12.04 LTS from April 2012 + K Desktop Environment (KDE) 4.8 | December 2012 | ||
version 3.1 | ARB 5.2 release from September 2010 (64-bit) | Kubuntu 10.4 LTS from April 2010 + K Desktop Environment (KDE) 4.4 | January 2011 | ||
version 3.0 | ARB 5.1 release from October 2009 (32-bit) | Kubuntu 9.04 from April 2009 + K Desktop Environment (KDE) 4.3 | November 2009 | ||
version 2.0 | ARB release from December 2007 | Kubuntu 7.10 from October 2007 + K Desktop Environment (KDE) 3.5 | January 2008 | ||
version 1.2 | internal enhanced ARB version from August 2006 with same stability as the Linux Beta release from August 2003 | Kubuntu 6.06 from June 2006 | February 2007 | ||
version 1.0 | internal enhanced ARB version from March 2006 with same stability as the Linux Beta release from August 2003 | Ubuntu 5.10 from October 2005 + GNOME 2.12 desktop environment | May 2006 |