When creating an instance on Nimbus, you choose an image. This is the operating system that will be on your instance once it is created. Ubuntu is the main set of images that Nimbus staff actively provide, but we also provide Centos. You can also upload your own operating system, but then you are responsible for maintaining that image, and updating it when newer versions become available.

Which one should I use?

If you are unsure, we recommend that you choose from the Ubuntu images we provide. Consult the table below to guide you on which one to use. To view the current list of public images in the Nimbus dashboard, click Compute → Images or this link https://nimbus.pawsey.org.au/project/images

In the table below there are collections of additional software packages installed. They are as follows:

• Pawsey extras: Docker, rclone, Singularity
• Bio extras: Bicontainers, CernVM-FS, Nextflow, Python3, Pip, Singularity-HPC, Spack
• CUDA: Nvidia software to support the use of vGPU instances