Global models of the Earth system require the use of massive computational resources to handle big data. This means that the use of numerical calculation needs to be very efficient and managed by expert users, in order to minimise the resources that are only finalised to make software user friendly.
This is the reason why the majority of the web servers run over the Linux operating system, which is addressed to experienced users. But what is an operating system? It essentially is a system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
To meet a diversity of user needs, several operating systems have been developed. Windows is the most commonly used. We will focus on the above mentioned Linux system, that is openly available.
Why Linux
Linux offers several opportunities and excellent performances for the management of big data, thanks to an efficient use of computational resources. In fact, most of the supercomputers use Linux because it allows for deep optimization to match specific hardware and workload demands, thanks to its open source nature and flexibility. Deep optimisation is necessary for high-performance computing (HPC). The efficiency of Linux allows to run demanding applications even with non-recent personal computers.
Thanks to the recent development of several user interfaces, Linux is also user friendly. Therefore it can be quickly learned and used by non-expert users. There are several distro available (see here for a description of available distro and here for a list). For low performing machines, it is advisable to install a light distro, like Xubuntu or Lubuntu. Linux can be installed as unique operating system or as an alternative to another operating system on the same machine through a dual booting.
Virtual machines
A quick possibility is to install linux through a virtual machine. The most used are Vmware and VirtualBox. Be attemptive of the resources that you assign to the virtual machine as this is a key step to ensure that applications run as expected. You may want to see an example of step by step installation of Xubuntu on a VirtualBox virtual machine in this video of one of my lectures.
Introductory guides to Linux
You can find introductory slides on Linux here. Also, you can find here an introductory guide to the system, and here an open source course, if you get passionate and motivated to learn more. Of course, the web provides several additional references.
Also, please refer to the videos of the lectures for additional information.
Coding
Coding is essential to take full advantage from computational resources. We will refer to languages: the language of the R-project and Python.
Coding in R
In the web site of the r-project a good introductory guide can be downloaded. Refer also to the videos of my lectures for a first introduction. From the Ubuntu Linux terminal, R can be installed with the instruction "sudo apt-get install r-base".
Python
Python is recently gaining a lot of traction. A good introductory guide, with instructions for installation, can be found here.
Last modification on October 8, 2025.
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