"open" is a mac-specific command, doesn't work on linux.

[bredelings]

The instructions say

$ open SRR097977_fastqc.html

This is not true for linux computers. On linux computers, open means something entirely different "start a program on a new virtual terminal (VT)." (See man open). On Linux, "open" is the same as "openvt".

Later, the instructions say

$ cd ~/Desktop/fastqc_html/
$ open *.html```

This doesn't work on linux.  It gives the same error that you get on the amazon cloud instance.  On linux, you can write `firefox *.html` if firefox is installed.  However, firefox doesn't seem to present a command-line interface on Mac.  

[taylorreiter]

So true! Thanks @bredelings. It also does not work on windows. On windows, start chrome *html or start firefox *html work. Will this also work for linux? This is obviously browser specific, does anyone else have suggestions?

[tobyhodges]

We used this as an opportunity to demo scp/Filezilla/some other file transfer tool, to look at the FastQC HTML output files on the learners' local machines.

[sstevens2]

AZ bbq: We agree that the reference to open should be removed.