Version requirements

Summary of changes for OMERO 5.4 and provisional changes for 5.5

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 5.4 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 5.4 release and also possible changes for the following 5.5 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.

Please check the meaning of the various symbols used on this page. Any system/component with a green tick symbol is supported.

Operating systems

• Microsoft Windows

  • From [5.3] client support only
  • Rationale: see blog post explanation

• MacOS X

  • MacOS X is typically suited only to client use, not serious server deployment, although the server can be expected to build on versions with current security support for development purposes.

• Linux (CentOS/RHEL)

  Linux version	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  6.x
  7.x

• Linux (Ubuntu LTS)

  Linux version	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  14.04
  16.04

  • 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: No change in this timeframe.

Bitness

Currently both client and server will work on 32- and 64-bit systems on all platforms with the exception of MacOS X (64-bit only).

Bitness	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
32-bit	for Ice and native code [client]	for Ice and native code [client]	for Ice and native code [client]
64-bit

Components

• PostgreSQL

  PostgreSQL	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  9.3
  9.4
  9.5
  9.6

  • Rationale: Current releases available for all supported systems from upstream and for CentOS/RHEL 6.x officially via SCL (software collections).

• Python

  Python	OMERO.web 5.3	OMERO.server 5.3	OMERO.web 5.4	OMERO.server 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  2.6
  2.7
  3.x

  • Rationale: 2.7 is provided by all systems except for CentOS/RHEL 6.x, however it is available officially via SCL. Note that 3.3 is also available via SCL, so there is potential for a 3.x migration in the 5.4 timeframe. OMERO.web no longer works with Python 2.6, the OMERO.server can still be used with Python 2.6.

• Ice

  Ice	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  3.5
  3.6
  3.7

• Java

  Java	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  7
  8
  9

  • Rationale: For 5.3 and 5.4 deprecate 7; this is because security support ended in April 2015. Currently, Matlab is shipped with Java 7 so it cannot be marked as dropped yet.

• nginx

  nginx	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
  1.6
  1.8
  1.10
  1.12

Support levels

The following table defines the symbols used throughout this page 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
	unsupported/new	New version not yet regularly tested and not officially supported; may or may not work (use at own risk)
	supported/suboptimal	Version which is tested, confirmed to work correctly, but may not offer optimal performance/experience
	supported/optimal	Version which is regularly tested, confirmed to work correctly, recommended for optimal performance/experience
	supported/deprecated	Version which is less tested, expected to work correctly, but may not offer optimal performance/experience; official support may be dropped in the next major OMERO release
	unsupported/old	Old version no longer tested and no longer officially supported; may or may not work (use at own risk)
	unsupported/broken	Known to not work
	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 deployment.

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 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	Details
6	from Nov 2010	to Nov 2020				Reference
7	from June 2014	to June 2024				Reference

RHEL, CentOS 6 and 7 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 at least 5.4.0.

Linux (Ubuntu)

General overview

Version	Release date	Upstream support	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
14.04 LTS	from Apr 2014	to Apr 2019
16.04 LTS	from Apr 2016	to Apr 2021

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 14.04 LTS, 16.04 LTS and more recent non-LTS releases.

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
Ubuntu	Reference
Homebrew	Reference
FreeBSD Ports	Reference

PostgreSQL

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Upstream support	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
9.3	from Sep 2013	to Sep 2018
9.4	from Dec 2014	to Dec 2019
9.5	from Jan 2016	to Jan 2021
9.6	from Sep 2016	to Sep 2021
Details		Reference

Version provided by distribution

If no version is provided, a suitable repository is indicated.

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
9.3	N/A	14.04	N/A	Yes
9.4	6 (postgresql), 7 (postgresql)	14.04, 16.04 (postgresql)	Yes	Yes
9.5	6 (postgresql), 7 (postgresql)	14.04 (postgresql), 16.04	Yes	Yes
9.6	6 (postgresql), 7 (postgresql)	14.04, 16.04 (postgresql)	Yes	Yes
Details		Reference

The PostgreSQL project provides packages for supported platforms. Therefore distribution support is not critical since 9.4, 9.5 and 9.6 are available for all platforms.

Python

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Upstream support	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	Details
2.6	from Oct 2008	to Oct 2013	[1] [2]	[1] [2]		PEP 361
2.7	from Jul 2010	to 2020				PEP 373
3.2	from Feb 2011	to Feb 2016				PEP 392
3.3	from Sep 2012	to Sep 2017				PEP 398
3.4	from Mar 2014	TBA				PEP 429
3.5	from Sept 2015	TBA				PEP 478
3.6	from Dec 2016	TBA				PEP 494

[1]	(1, 2) For OMERO.web, Python 2.7 is the minimum supported version.

[2]	(1, 2) For OMERO.py and OMERO.server, Python 2.6 is the minimum supported version.

Version provided by distribution

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
2.6	6	10.04	N/A	Yes
2.7	7	14.04, 16.04	Yes	Yes
3.2	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
3.3	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
3.4	N/A	14.04	N/A	Yes
3.5	N/A	16.04	N/A	Yes
3.6	N/A	N/A	Yes	Yes
Details		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.

The supported version of the Django module used by OMERO.web (1.8) requires Python 2.7. The older version (1.6) will work with Python 2.6 but lacks security support, and is consequently not recommended for production use.

Ice

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Upstream support	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	Details
3.5	from Mar 2013	to Oct 2013				3.5.0, 3.5.1
3.6	from June 2015	to TBA				3.6.0 (3.6.1 ), 3.6.2, 3.6.3, 3.6.4
3.7	from July 2017	to TBA				3.7.0

Version provided by distribution

If no version is provided, a suitable repository is indicated.

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
3.5	6, 7 (zeroc)	14.04, 16.04	N/A	N/A
3.6	6, 7 (zeroc)	14.04, 16.04 (zeroc)	Yes	Yes
3.7	7 (zeroc)	16.04 (zeroc)	Yes	Yes
Details		Reference

Java

General overview

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Upstream support	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5	Details
7	from Jul 2011	to Apr 2015				Reference
8	from Mar 2014	to Mar 2017				Reference
9	TBA	TBA

Version provided by distribution

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
7	6, 7	14.04	N/A	Yes
8	6, 7	16.04	N/A	Yes
9	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Details		Reference

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

nginx

General overview and roadmap

OMERO support policies

Version	Release date	Upstream support	OMERO 5.3	OMERO 5.4	OMERO 5.5
1.6	from Apr 2014	to Apr 2015
1.8	from Apr 2015	to Jan 2016
1.10	from April 2016	TBA
1.12	from April 2016	TBA

Version provided by distribution

If no version is provided, a suitable repository is indicated.

Version	CentOS/RHEL	Ubuntu	Homebrew	FreeBSD Ports
1.6	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
1.8	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
1.10	6 (EPEL), 7 (EPEL)	14.04 (nginx), 16.04	Yes	Yes
1.12	6 (EPEL), 7 (EPEL)	14.04 (nginx), 16.04	Yes	Yes
Details			Reference