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Note

This documentation is for the new OMERO 5.1. version. See the latest OMERO 5.0.x version or the previous versions page to find documentation for the OMERO version you are using if you have not upgraded yet.

Version requirements

Summary of changes for OMERO 5.1 and planned changes for 5.2

Criteria for what is considered to be supportable includes whether support by both upstream developers and operating system distributions will be available for the lifetime of the 5.1 release (including security support), and also upon our resources allocated to CI and testing. If we are not actively testing it, we cannot claim it is supported or functional. Software components must be provided and supported either by an operating system distribution or their original developers.

This section contains a summary of the changes made to the minimum version requirements for the 5.1 release and also planned changes for the following 5.2 release, albeit tentatively at this point. The intent is to provide a roadmap in order that sysadmins may plan ahead and ensure that prerequisites are in place ahead of time to ease future upgrades. The following sections provide more detailed information and the rationale for the changes.

Operating systems

  • Microsoft Windows
    • [5.1] XP/Server 2003/Vista dropped, 7 (client) recommended / Server 2008R2 (server) recommended
    • [5.2] 7 / Server 2008R2 supported, 8 (client) recommended / Server 2012R2 (server) recommended
    • Rationale: All prior versions prior to this are/will be out of support shortly except Vista (which we do not test and is not widely used). We have no testing of these older systems.
  • MacOS X
    • [5.1] 10.6 and 10.7 dropped, 10.8 supported, 10.9 recommended, 10.10 supported
    • [5.2] 10.8 deprecated, 10.9 supported, 10.10 recommended
    • Support 10.8 for client only, test server only on 10.9/10.10 (for 5.1); test server only on 10.10+ for 5.2.
    • Rationale: 10.6 and 10.7 no longer have security support and it still leaves 3 versions to support. MacOS X is typically suited only to client use, not serious server deployment, so limit testing accordingly
  • Linux (CentOS/RHEL)
    • [5.1] 6.x recommended, 7.x supported
    • [5.2] 7.x recommended, 6.x deprecated/dropped
    • Rationale: 7 is quite new and not yet widely adopted, and so it is likely many institutions will wish to continue using 6 for the foreseeable future. However, the versions in 6 are getting quite old and this does affect the support for other components (see below); schedule its deprecation/dropping in 5.2 depending upon the circumstances
  • Linux (Ubuntu LTS)
    • [5.1] 10.04 dropped, 12.04 deprecated, 14.04 recommended
    • [5.2] 12.04 dropped, 14.04 recommended
    • Only LTS versions are supported and tested. Non-LTS versions following a supported LTS release are likely to work but are not officially supported or tested.
    • Rationale: Both are newer than CentOS/RHEL 6.x, so both could be supported since all version requirements are satisfied. However, 14.04 comes with Ice 3.5 and is generally more up to date, and we do not have testing in place for either at present. We do not have the resources to test non-LTS versions, though recent releases are in use by developers.
  • Linux (Debian)
    • [5.1] 6 deprecated, 7 recommended
    • [5.2] 7 deprecated, 8 recommended
    • Rationale: 6 is older than Ubuntu 12.04 and only has Ice 3.3; extended support will be present for the 5.1 lifetime however so will be usable if Ice is upgraded, but will not have official support.

Bitness

Currently 32- and 64-bit systems are supported for client and server on all platforms with the exception of MacOS X (64-bit only).

  • [5.1] Drop 32-bit support for server, retain 32-bit support for clients
  • [5.2] Drop 32-bit support for Ice and native code
  • Rationale: It’s not practical to run a server on a 32-bit system due to its memory requirements, so it’s safe to drop 32-bit support for OMERO.server in 5.1 given that it’s de-facto 64-bit-only today. There are still a significant number of 32-bit Windows clients (~60%), so support should be retained until this changes. Maintaining custom builds of Ice for 32-bit systems is extremely costly, and so we could consider dropping them for 5.2.

Components

  • PostgreSQL
    • [5.1] 8.4/9.0/9.1 dropped, 9.2 deprecated, 9.3+ recommended
    • [5.2] 9.2 dropped, 9.3 deprecated, 9.4+ recommended
    • Rationale: Current releases available for all supported systems from upstream and for CentOS/RHEL 6.x officially via SCL (software collections). At a bare minimum, 8.4 and 9.0 must be dropped (end of security support); dropping 9.1 removes the floating point issues fixed by 9.2+. Due to its age, 8.4 no longer receives adequate testing and so we can’t claim to support it. The same applies to 9.0 and 9.1. Given the annual release cycle, it would make sense to deprecate 9.2 for 5.2.
  • Python
    • [5.1] 2.6 deprecated, 2.7 recommended, 3.x not supported
    • [5.2] 2.6 dropped, 2.7 recommended, 3.x not supported
    • Rationale: 2.7 is provided by all systems except for CentOS/RHEL 6.x, however it is available officially via SCL so could be made the minimum. Note that 3.3 is also available via SCL, so there is potential for a 3.x migration in the 5.2 timeframe. Dropping 2.6 would unify python support to a single major version, and remove a number of portability issues; now it is restricted to CentOS/RHEL 6, in practice it is much less tested than 2.7 since no developer is using it routinely. Removing 2.6 support will be dependent upon internal testing of the SCL python in CentOS.
  • GCC
    • [5.1] 4.4 deprecated, 4.6+ supported, 4.8+ recommended
    • [5.2] 4.4 dropped, 4.6+ deprecated, 4.8+ recommended
    • Rationale: 4.4 is the CentOS/RHEL 6.x default. It would be desirable to update but is probably not what external users will want given the compatibility concerns. The SCL DeveloperToolset3 could bring this up to GCC 4.9.1, which would make the new baseline GCC 4.6 (Ubuntu 12.04 and Travis). The planned changes for 5.2 depend upon our support of CentOS/RHEL 6.x and Ubuntu 12.04.
  • LLVM/clang
    • [5.1] 3.3 dropped, 3.4 recommended, 3.5 supported
    • [5.2] 3.4 supported, 3.5 recommended
    • Rationale: It is the current toolchain on MacOS/FreeBSD and is working well; 3.3 dropped due to no longer being used by current toolchains
  • Microsoft Visual Studio
    • [5.1] 2010 deprecated, 2012 supported, 2013 recommended
    • [5.2] 2010 dropped, 2012 deprecated, 2013 recommended, 2015 supported
    • Rationale: The minimum (and maximum) MSVC version is determined by the Windows Ice builds provided by ZeroC, and as such is limited by our Ice version requirements. Raising the limit in 5.2 will permit use of newer language features.
  • Ice
    • [5.1] 3.4 deprecated, 3.5 recommended, 3.6 not supported
    • [5.2] 3.4 dropped, 3.5 deprecated, 3.6 recommended
    • Rationale: 3.4 is no longer supported by ZeroC with 3.5 being current. By the release of 5.2, Ice 3.6 will have been out for some time and should be well tested.
  • Java
    • [5.1] 6 deprecated, 7 recommended, 8 supported
    • [5.2] 6 dropped, 7 deprecated, 8 recommended
    • Rationale: It will be 2 years this Februrary since the last Java 6 security update. Java 7 is supported on all supported operating systems above, and in most cases is the default Java version on those systems (it’s now 8 on some). This was mentioned recently, and also by the Fiji developers; 5.1 would be an opportune time to deprecate or preferably drop Java 6. Also note that we no longer actively test with a Java 6 JVM; all internal testing is on Java 7 or 8 (Oracle and OpenJDK), and there are some client issues with OpenJDK6. Also note that Ice 3.6 drops Java 6 support. For 5.2 deprecate 7; this is because security support ends in April 2015.
    • For MacOS X, separate application bundles for Java 6 and Java 7+ allow the use of Java 7 or 8 on all supported MacOS X versions.
    • The requirement for 7 in the Windows clients is less urgent, but will encourage migration to a non-deprecated Java version ahead of the removal of support for 6.
  • Apache
    • [5.1] 2.2 supported, 2.4 recommended
    • [5.2] 2.2 deprecated, 2.4 recommended
    • Rationale: 2.2 is the CentOS/RHEL 6.x and Ubuntu 12.04 version which will be deprecated in 5.2.
  • nginx
    • [5.1] 1.0 deprecated, 1.2/1.4 supported, 1.6 recommended
    • [5.2] 1.0 dropped, 1.2/1.4 deprecated, 1.6 recommemded
    • Rationale: All versions work; 1.0 is the Ubuntu 12.04 version, 1.4 is the Ubuntu 14.04 and Debian 8 version. Deprecate and drop for 5.2 accordingly.

Support levels

The following sections use the terminology in the table below to describe the support status of a given component, as it progresses from being new and not supported, to supported and tested on a routine basis, and to finally being old and no longer supported nor tested.

Level Meaning Description
Upcoming unsupported/new New version not yet regularly tested and not officially supported; may or may not work (use at own risk)
Supported supported/suboptimal Version which is tested, confirmed to work correctly, but may not offer optimal performance/experience
Recommended supported/optimal Version which is regularly tested, confirmed to work correctly, recommended for optimal performance/experience
Deprecated supported/deprecated Version which is less tested, expected to work correctly, but may not offer optimal performance/experience; official support will be dropped in the next major OMERO release
Dropped unsupported/old Old version no longer tested and no longer officially supported; may or may not work (use at own risk)
Broken unsupported/broken Known to not work
Unsupported unsupported/misc Not supported for some reason other than the above

Operating system support

The following subsections detail the versions of each operating system which are supported by both its upstream developers (for security and general updates) and by OME for OMERO building and server and client deployment.

Microsoft Windows

General overview (under ‘W’ in the index)

    Upstream support        
Version Release date (mainline) (extended) OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2 Details
XP from Dec 2001 to Apr 2014 to Apr 2014 Deprecated Dropped Dropped Ref
Server 2003 R2 from May 2003 to Jul 2010 to Jul 2015 Deprecated Dropped Dropped Ref
Vista from Jan 2007 to Apr 2012 to Apr 2017 Deprecated Dropped Dropped Ref
Win 7 from Oct 2009 to Jan 2015 to Jan 2020 Recommended Recommended Supported Ref
Server 2008 R2 from May 2008 to Jan 2018 to Jan 2023 Recommended Recommended Supported Ref
Win 8 from Oct 2012 to Jan 2018 to Jan 2023 Upcoming Supported Recommended Ref
Server 2012 from Oct 2012 to Jan 2018 to Jan 2023 Upcoming Supported Recommended Ref

XP is now unsupported upstream, and Server 2003 will be unsupported within the timeframe of 5.1 support. Vista is likely supported but usage is minimal and it is untested, hence marked as dropped. 7/Server 2008 and 8/Server 2012 are both supported and used. Server 2008 builds in place; no 2012 builds or testing in place yet. No regular Windows CI deployment and testing is in place other than manually. Some manual testing on Windows 7 VMs and machines.

UNIX (MacOS X)

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support Homebrew support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
10.6 from Jun 2008 Ended Ended Deprecated Dropped Dropped
10.7 from Oct 2010 Ended Supported for the moment Deprecated Dropped Dropped
10.8 from Feb 2012 Supported for the moment Supported Recommended Deprecated Dropped
10.9 from Jun 2013 Supported Supported Supported Recommended Supported
10.10 from Oct 2014 Supported Supported Supported Supported Recommended

Apple do not formally announce end of life for their releases, but 10.6 security fixes ended some time back, and 10.7 has now also ended with the release of 10.10. We have regular CI testing of 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10 builds plus developer testing of building and client and server deployment. 10.6 and 10.7 are marked as dropped since we no longer use 10.6 internally, and never used 10.7, and they are no longer tested by the CI infrastructure (all 10.6 and 10.7 nodes retired).

UNIX (FreeBSD)

It only really makes sense to support the base toolchain for major releases and the Ports tree (which is continually updated); these will be covered in the dependencies, below.

Linux (Centos and RHEL)

General overview for RHEL and CentOS

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2 Details
5 from Mar 2007 to Mar 2017 Dropped Dropped Dropped Ref
6 from Nov 2010 to Nov 2020 Recommended Recommended Dropped Ref
7 from June 2014 to June 2024 Unsupported Supported Recommended Ref

Only RHEL and CentOS 6 are supported at present. Given the long life of enterprise releases, we intend to support only the latest release at any given time or else it ties us into very old dependencies; 6.x is already quite long in the tooth, however is in wide use and so will require supporting for 5.1 at a minimum. 7.x can be the recommended version once it is properly tested by us and has appropriate CI support. There is currently extensive CI support for building and deployment with CentOS 6 but it is not used directly by developers in general.

Linux (Fedora)

General overview

Due to the fast pace of Fedora development, it only really makes sense to support the current and perhaps the previous release; these will be covered in the dependencies, below.

Linux (Ubuntu)

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
10.04 (.4) LTS from Apr 2010 to Apr 2015 (server only) Deprecated Dropped Dropped
10.10 from Oct 2010 to Apr 2012 Dropped Dropped Dropped
11.04 from Apr 2011 to Oct 2012 Dropped Dropped Dropped
11.10 from Oct 2011 to May 2013 Dropped Dropped Dropped
12.04 (.4) LTS from Apr 2012 to Apr 2017 Recommended Deprecated Dropped
12.10 from Oct 2012 to May 2014 Dropped Dropped Dropped
13.04 from Apr 2013 to Jan 2014 Dropped Dropped Dropped
13.10 from Oct 2013 to Jul 2014 Dropped Dropped Dropped
14.04 LTS from Apr 2014 to Apr 2019 Supported Recommended Recommended
14.10 from Oct 2014 to Jul 2015 Supported Supported Supported
15.04 TBA TBA Unsupported Unsupported Upcoming

Only the LTS releases are supported due to resource limitations upon CI and testing. Only the last two LTS releases are supported (being a bit more frequent than CentOS/RHEL). There is currently no CI testing for any version, but some developer use of 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS and more recent non-LTS releases.

Linux (Debian stable)

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2 Details
5.0 from Feb 2009 to Feb 2012 Dropped Dropped Dropped Reference
6.0 from Feb 2011 to Feb 2016 Supported Deprecated Dropped Reference
7.0 from May 2013 TBA Recommended Recommended Deprecated Reference
8.0 TBA TBA Unsupported Unsupported Supported Reference

Stable releases 7.x and 6.x are supported. There is no CI testing for any version, and some developer use of 7.x.

Linux (Debian testing and unstable)

Due to the fast pace of Debian developement, it only really makes sense to support the last one or two stable releases; the testing and unstable requirements will be covered in the dependencies, below.

Hardware support

Microsoft Windows

Supports amd64 (64-bit) and i386 / x86 (32-bit) for all supported versions; most systems are today running x64 with most hardware being x64, but there is still a niche of x86 users, estimated <25% and falling globally. On Windows, crude estimates are that OMERO.server is 66% amd64, OMERO.insight is 40% amd64, Bio-Formats is 70% amd64. However, note that OMERO.server deployment on Windows is rare, and the i386 systems are not likely to be production servers.

Unix (MacOS X)

Currently all supported versions are amd64 (64-bit) only.

Unix (FreeBSD)

Supports amd64 (64-bit) and i386 / x86 (32-bit) for all supported releases. Other platforms are supported, but may require manual building of prerequisites.

Linux (RHEL and CentOS)

Version 6 supports amd64 (64-bit) and i386 / x86 (32-bit). Version 7 supports amd64 (64-bit) only. Crude estimates (Linux+MacOS) are that OMERO.server is 98% amd64, OMERO.insight is 98% amd64, Bio-Formats is 78% amd64.

Linux (other)

Most distributions support i386 / x86 (32-bit) as well, while some support additional architectures such as 32-bit and/or 64-bit arm and powerpc.

Additional notes

The OMERO server is 64-bit-only due to the large memory requirements. On the client side, there is a requirement for 32-bit support for Windows clients and to a lesser extent on Linux, and zero on MacOS X at present. Dropping 32-bit support for OMERO.server and C++ Ice and other builds should be considered, given the vast reduction in the support burden and steadily dropping need for these builds.

Dependencies

The following subsections detail the versions of each dependency needed by OMERO which are supported by both its upstream developers (for security and general updates) and by OME for OMERO building and server and client deployment.

Note

Versions in brackets are in development distributions and may change without notice.

Package lists

Operating system Details
CentOS 6 / RHEL 6 Reference
CentOS 7 / RHEL 7 Reference
Fedora (general) Reference
Fedora 19 Reference
Fedora 20 Reference
Fedora 21 Reference
Ubuntu Reference
Debian Reference
Homebrew Reference
FreeBSD Ports Reference

PostgreSQL

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
8.4 from Jul 2009 to Jul 2014 Deprecated Dropped Dropped
9.0 from Sep 2010 to Sep 2015 Deprecated Dropped Dropped
9.1 from Sep 2011 to Sep 2016 Deprecated Dropped Dropped
9.2 from Sep 2012 to Sep 2017 Recommended Deprecated Dropped
9.3 from Sep 2013 to Sep 2018 Supported Recommended Deprecated
9.4 from Dec 2014 to Dec 2019 Unsupported Supported Recommended
9.5 TBA TBA Unsupported Unsupported Upcoming
Details   Reference      

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
8.4 6.x N/A 10.04, 12.04 6.0, 7.0 Yes Yes
9.0 N/A N/A N/A N/A Yes Yes
9.1 N/A N/A 12.04, 13.04, 13.10 7.0, (8.0), 6.0 bpo Yes Yes
9.2 7.x 19 N/A N/A Yes Yes
9.3 N/A 20, 21 14.04 N/A N/A Yes
9.4 N/A N/A 14.10 (8.0) N/A Yes
9.5 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Details   Ref Ref Ref    

The PostgreSQL project provides packages for supported platforms. Therefore distribution support is not critical since 9.3 and 9.4 are available for all platforms.

Python

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2 Details
2.5 from Sep 2006 to Oct 2011 Dropped Dropped Dropped Reference Download
2.6 from Oct 2008 to Oct 2013 Supported Deprecated Dropped Reference
2.7 from Jul 2010 to 2020 Recommended Recommended Recommended Reference
3.0 from Dec 2008 to Feb 2009 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported Reference
3.1 from Jun 2009 to June 2014 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported Reference
3.2 from Feb 2011 to Feb 2016 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported Reference
3.3 from Sep 2012 to Sep 2017 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported Reference
3.4 from Mar 2014 TBA Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported Reference
3.5 TBA TBA Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported Reference

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
2.5 N/A N/A N/A 6.0 N/A N/A
2.6 6.x N/A 10.04 6.0, 7.0 N/A Yes
2.7 7.x 19, 20, 21 12.04, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) 7.0, (8.0) Yes Yes
3.0 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
3.1 N/A N/A 10.04 6.0 N/A N/A
3.2 N/A N/A 12.04 7.0 N/A Yes
3.3 N/A 19, 20 13.04, 13.10 N/A N/A Yes
3.4 N/A 21 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
3.5 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Details   Python 2 Python 3 Python 2 Python 3 Python 2 Python 3    

At the moment 2.7 support is present upstream for the foreseeable future; 3.x versions continue to be released and retired regularly in parallel. The limiting factor will be distribution support for 2.7 as major packages are slowly switching to 3.x, and this might cause problems if our python module dependencies are no longer available without major effort. Ice in particular has dropped 2.7 support for Windows, and has a significant cost in providing custom rebuilds.

GCC

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
4.2 from May 2007 to May 2008 Dropped Dropped Dropped
4.3 from Mar 2008 to Jun 2011 Dropped Dropped Dropped
4.4 from Apr 2009 to Mar 2012 Supported Deprecated Dropped
4.5 from Apr 2010 to Jul 2012 Supported Deprecated Dropped
4.6 from Mar 2011 to Apr 2013 Supported Supported Deprecated
4.7 from Mar 2012 to Apr 2013 Supported Supported Deprecated
4.8 from Mar 2013 to May 2014 Supported Recommended Recommended
4.9 from Apr 2014 TBA Supported Recommended Recommended
5.0 TBA TBA Unsupported Unsupported Upcoming

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
4.2 N/A N/A N/A N/A Yes N/A
4.3 N/A N/A 10.04 6.0 Yes N/A
4.4 6.x N/A 10.04, 12.04, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10 6.0, 7.0 Yes N/A
4.5 N/A N/A 12.04 N/A Yes N/A
4.6 N/A N/A 12.04, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10 7.0, (8.0) Yes N/A
4.7 N/A N/A 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10 7.0, (8.0) Yes Yes
4.8 7.x 19, 20 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
4.9 N/A 21 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
5.0 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Details   Ref Ref Ref    

GCC 4.2 support was dropped with the dropping of MacOS 10.6; the current baseline is GCC 4.4.

LLVM/clang

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
3.1 from May 2012 to May 2012 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
3.2 from Dec 2012 to Dec 2012 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
3.3 from Jen 2013 to Jen 2013 Deprecated Dropped Dropped
3.4 from Jan 2014 to May 2014 from Jan 2014 to May 2014 Recommended Recommended Supported
3.5 from Sep 2014 to Sep 2014 Unsupported Supported Recommended
3.6 TBA TBA Unsupported Unsupported Upcoming

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
3.1 N/A N/A N/A N/A Yes N/A
3.2 N/A N/A 13.04, 13.10 N/A Yes Yes
3.3 N/A 19 12.04, 13.10, 14.04. 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
3.4 N/A 20, 21 12.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
3.5 N/A (22) 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
3.6 N/A N/A N/A (8.0) N/A N/A
Details   Ref Ref Ref    

Note that clang++ 3.3 is used in MacOS 10.8 and FreeBSD 10; earlier versions were not much used as a default compiler and are probably not worth supporting; 3.4 is used in MacOS X 10.9 and 10.10 and in FreeBSD 10.1. Until 3.4, no point releases were made for major versions.

Microsoft Visual Studio

General overview

    Upstream support      
Version Release date (mainline) (extended) OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
2008 from Aug 2008 to Apr 2013 to Apr 2018 Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
2010 from Jun 2010 to Jul 2015 to Jul 2020 Supported Deprecated Dropped
2012 from Oct 2012 to Jan 2018 to Jan 2023 Supported Supported Supported
2013 from Jan 2014 to Apr 2019 to Apr 2024 Recommended Recommended Recommended
2015 from TBA to TBA to TBA Unsupported Unsupported Supported

The version to use is largely dependent upon the Ice support for a particular Visual Studio version.

  • Ice 3.6 supports 2013 and 2012
  • Ice 3.5 supports 2013, 2012 and 2010
  • Ice 3.4 supports 2010 and 2008

In general later versions have better C++ standards conformance and correctness, and should be preferred where possible.

Ice

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2 Details
3.3 from May 2008 to May 2009 Dropped Dropped Dropped Ice 3.3 Ice 3.3.1
3.4 from Mar 2010 to Jun 2011 Supported Deprecated Dropped Ice 3.4 Ice 3.4.2
3.5 from Mar 2013 to Oct 2013 Recommended Recommended Deprecated Ice 3.5 Ice 3.5.1
3.6 TBA (in beta) TBA Unsupported Unsupported Recommended  

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
3.3 N/A N/A 10.04 6.0 N/A N/A
3.4 N/A N/A 12.04, 13.04, 13.10 7.0 N/A N/A
3.5 N/A 19, 20, 21 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) Yes Yes
3.6 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Java

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2 Details
5 from May 2004 to Oct 2009 Dropped Dropped Dropped Reference
6 from Dec 2006 to Feb 2013 Supported Deprecated Dropped Reference
7 From Jul 2011 to Apr 2015 Recommended Supported Deprecated Reference
8 From Mar 2014 to Mar 2017 Supported Recommended Recommended Reference

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
5 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
6 6.x, 7.x N/A 10.04, 12.04, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) 6.0, 7.0, (8.0) N/A Yes
7 6.x, 7.x 19, 20, 21, (22) 12.04, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) 7.0, (8.0) N/A Yes
8 N/A 19, 20, 21, (22) 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) N/A Yes
Details   Ref 1 Ref 2 Ref Ref    

Note that all distributions provide OpenJDK 6, 7 and/or 8 due to distribution restrictions by Oracle. Oracle Java may be used if downloaded separately.

Oracle no longer allow general downloading of Java 6. Java 7 is available for all platforms except for OSX 10.6 (where it is installable manually by unpacking the 10.7 installer). Some 1.8 OpenJDK versions are broken (Debian/Ubuntu 1.8.0u40 broken), but some work (1.8.0u25, FreeBSD). 1.8 should become recommended once working versions exist in all distributions.

OpenGL

General overview

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
2.0 in Sep 2004 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
2.1 in Jun 2006 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
3.0 in Aug 2008 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
3.1 in Mar 2009 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
3.2 in Aug 2009 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
3.3 in Mar 2010 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
4.0 in Mar 2010 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
4.1 in Jul 2010 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
4.2 in Aug 2010 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
4.3 in Aug 2012 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
4.4 in Jul 2013 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported
4.5 in Aug 2014 N/A Unsupported Unsupported Unsupported

Distribution support

Version Windows CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian MacOS FreeBSD Ports
2.0 Varies* Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
2.1 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 (legacy profile) Varies†
3.0 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
3.1 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
3.2 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† 10.7, 10.8 (core profile) Varies†
3.3 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† 10.9, 10.10 (core profile min) Varies†
4.0 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
4.1 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† 10.9, 10.10 (core profile max) Varies†
4.2 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
4.3 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
4.4 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
4.5 Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† Varies† N/A Varies†
Details           Ref  
*
Driver/hardware dependent, but the Windows Vista/7/8 DirectX 9 requirement is mostly the same as OpenGL 2.0, so any badged machine should have OpenGL 2.0-capable hardware (it will also require a functional driver)
Driver/hardware dependent

Support is largely down to the system hardware (GPU) and drivers. There are no guarantees for 2.0 and greater on Windows (1.4 only guaranteed), but AMD, Intel and nVidia all provide GL drivers supporting newer versions. The minimum baseline is probably 2.1. However, 3.2/3.3 is probably the baseline for most hardware under 5 years old, with 4.x being the typical baseline for hardware from a year ago.

Apache

General overview and website.

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
2.0 from Nov 2001 to Jul2013 Dropped Dropped Dropped
2.2 from Dec 2005 TBA Recommended Supported Supported
2.4 from Feb 2012 TBA Supported Recommended Recommended

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
2.0 N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
2.2 6.x N/A 10.04, 12.04, 13.10 6.0, 7.0 N/A Yes
2.4 7.x 19, 20, 21, (22) 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, (15.04) (8.0) N/A Yes
Details   Ref Ref Ref    

Apache 2.2 requires mod_fastcgi (from external repository, for CentOS6). Apache 2.4 requires mod_proxy_fcgi.

nginx

General overview and roadmap

Version Release date Upstream support OMERO 5.0 OMERO 5.1 OMERO 5.2
1.0 from Apr 2011 to Apr 2012 Supported Deprecated Dropped
1.2 from Apr 2012 to May 2013 Supported Supported Deprecated
1.4 from Apr 2013 to Mar 2014 Recommended Supported Supported
1.6 from Apr 2014 TBA Supported Recommended Recommended

Distribution support

Version CentOS/RHEL Fedora Ubuntu Debian Homebrew FreeBSD Ports
1.0 N/A N/A 12.04 (1.1) N/A N/A N/A
1.2 N/A N/A 13.04 7.0, 6.0 bpo N/A N/A
1.4 N/A 19, 20 13.10, 14.04 N/A N/A N/A
1.6 N/A 21, (22) 14.10, (15.04) (8.0), 7.0 bpo Yes Yes
Details     Ref Ref