Problem with a DNA sequencer

I have recently obtained the MinION USB genome (DNA) sequencer, which to my disappointment doesn't seem to be working in Ubuntu properly.

I'm using the 12.04 release of Ubuntu. The sequencer is properly detected by the script/driver that comes with it, but seems to be unable to detect the sample.

I'm attaching the screenshot of the process. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Solution 1:

Seeing as the device is properly detected by the script, it seems more likely that your problem is on the gene sequencer side of things, rather than being an Ubuntu issue. Are there any other utilities which will allow you to communicate with your sequencer for any other features, perhaps a calibration routine? If Ubuntu can communicate with the machine and get it to do other things, I would expect the problem is with the gene sequencer rather than with the computer. Another possible test is to try using another operating system, if there is software available. Finally, make sure you sequencer has the latest firmware, and that the software you are using to connect is up to date.

Solution 2:

A wild guess: Could it be a permissions issue? Some devices work OK for some operations when run as an ordinary user, but require root privileges to perform other operations. Thus, you might try sudo ./gseq and see if that helps. If that helps but you don't want to run as root all the time, you can track down the device file(s) and change their permissions to give yourself access to the device using your normal account. This would probably involve creating udev rules. I won't go into that here since this solution is a bit of a long shot.