Before you rush to the comments and express your opinion about this title, let me make something clear. I do not expect anybody to erase their operating system and install Linux after reading this post. Actually, I do not care whether you use Linux or another operating system. All I want is to share what I have learned by using Linux, and why it made me a better scientist.

The mouse that infects your brain

About a year after I started to use Linux, I was surprised to realize how uncomfortable working on Mac and Windows had become. I could not quite pinpoint the problem, but I had the vague feeling that something was missing. Yet everything seemed to be there. When I could finally formulate it, I realized that what was bugging me was the discomfort that all the possible options had been preconceived for me. I could click on option A, I could click on option B, and if I liked neither of those, there was no option C.

But most surprising was that I had never realized this before, because I had no idea of all the things you can do with your computer. I...

About a year after setting up my laboratory, an observation suddenly hit me. All the job applicants were biologists who wanted to do bioinformatics. I was myself trained as an experimental biologist and started bioinformatics during my post-doc. They saw in my laboratory the opportunity to do the same. Indeed, “how did you become a bioinformatician?” is a question that I hear very often.

For lack of a better plan, most people grab a book about Linux or sign up for a Coursera class, try to do a bit every day and... well, just learn bioinformatics. I have seen extremely few people succeed this way. The content inevitably becomes too difficult, motivation decreases and other commitments take over. I will not lie, self-learning bioinformatcs is hard and it is frustrating... but it can be fun if you know how to do it. And most importantly, if you understand your worst enemy: yourself.

Here is a small digest of how it happened for me. I do not mean that this is the only way. I simply hope that this will be useful to those who seriously want to dive into bioinformatics.

Step 1. Get out of your...