Existing users, 
WU BLAST 2.0
biological sequence similarity search
Version: 2006-01-01
Can't even start it
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: iayork Friday, August 12 2005 @ 07:10 AM PDT
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Less than a month
Recommend Product: NO
The README file includes a lot of advanced help, but in my case I can't even get it running ... the cryptic instructions for using the command line simply don't work, even copying and pasting the 'examples'. Command line doesn't recognize that the program exists -- double-clicking on the executables yields only an error message ("FATAL: Invalid program name: ..."), because apparently they are supposed to be run from command line, which does nothing. Followed installation instructions carefully. I've been trying to use this software for a couple of years with no success. I've used NCBI blast for nearly 20 years, have a fair bit of experience with command line tools and scripts, but am completely baffled by this software. Very frustrating. I won't give rating to the functionality of the program, since I haven't been able to test it.
Comments
Can't even start it - iayork
According to the installation instructions, be sure to install the software in a directory listed in your PATH environment variable. The software was installed in /usr/local/bin (which is in my $PATH). I'll emphasize that the problem with this install may have been, in fact probably was, either with me or with my computer (which has had some issues since the Tiger upgrade); and that the developer is very responsive. Hopefully the next time I take a run at installing this it will go more smoothly.Saturday, August 20 2005 @ 06:19 PM PDT
Can't even start it - MasterBlaster
This is indeed CLI (command line interface) software, not GUI, which requires Mac users to have some basic familiarity with using apps within the Terminal application found in the /Applications/Utilities folder. According to the installation instructions, be sure to install the software in a directory listed in your PATH environment variable. (Lots of information about this can be found in Google and other search engines using keywords "PATH environment variable"). If the directory is not so listed, you'll need to preface each blast command with the directory path leading to where the executable resides.
BTW: you'll probably get a faster response by sending inquiries to BLAST E-mail, which is hotlinked at the bottom of the http://blast.wustl.edu home page.
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Friday, August 19 2005 @ 06:31 PM PDT