The following table summarizes the minimum and recommended configurations for development and debugging:

Laptops are as suitable as desktop computers for development.

The software stack should be based on the GNU/Linux or BSD operating systems whenever possible.

MacOS X – based on FreeBSD – can also be used for development, taking a few extras hours into account every month to maintain the development environment sane and up-to-date, since Apple does not make it easy for its users to customize their system.

Windows is not suitable for production calculations and has various security issues that will not be fixed any time soon. It should be used for teaching purposes only, in the extremely rare situations where no alternative operating system can be used.

Every computer that will be used for scientific software development and/or production calculations should have A recent stable version of GCC (the GNU Compiler Collection) installed. In 2017, the minimum suitable version is 4.9.4 (former versions lack important Fortran features), and the recommended one is 6.3 (Fortran 2003 and 2008). GCC is a reference for development and debugging, due to its great portability, and because it is Software Libre.

For production calculations, the most recommended compiler for the selected architecture is usually required as well. Many of such compilers are proprietary and bound to the periodic purchase of a time-limited license. They usually produce code that is from 20% to 100% faster than GCC, since portability considerations are secondary.