Lin4Neuro: a customized Linux distribution ready for neuroimaging analysis

The boot time of this system was only around 40 seconds. We performed a benchmark test of inhomogeneity correction on 10 subjects of three-dimensional T1-weighted MRI scans. The processing speed of USB-booted Lin4Neuro was as fast as that of the package installed on the hard disk drive. We also installed Lin4Neuro on a virtualization software package that emulates the Linux environment on a Windows-based operation system. Although the processing speed was slower than that under other conditions, it remained comparable.With Lin4Neuro in one's hand, one can access neuroimaging software packages easily, and immediately focus on analyzing data. Lin4Neuro can be a good primer for beginners of neuroimaging analysis or students who are interested in neuroimaging analysis. It also provides a practical means of sharing analysis environments across sites.The flourishing development of the neuroimaging research field has been in part supported by a wealth of open-source software packages released from various laboratories worldwide. Besides the obvious merit of being available for free, they are often equipped with cutting-edge analytical tools that are not included in commercial software packages, allowing researchers to perform state-of-the-art neuroimaging analyses.These packages are usually developed for a specific purpose, but many researchers use them in combination. For example, Acosta-Cabronero et al. [1] demonstrated that the combination of skull stripping with BET2 [2] and intensity inhomogeneity correction with N3 [3] improved the accuracy of the gray matter segmentation of SPM5 [4].Conventionally, UNIX or UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux have served as platforms for developing most of these software packages. However, not all researchers in the field of neuroimaging are familiar with those versatile yet recondite operating systems. This is especially so given the interdisciplinary development of neuroimaging research, which inevitably entails the influx of