What do we mean by "likely" or "possible" rotamers?

Background

Glycosidic linkages can populate more than one conformation in solution, depending on the constituent monosaccharides and linkage type. The conformation of each glycosidic bond is measured using dihedral angles labelled as phi, psi or omega for the first, second and (if present) third bond of the linkage.

"Possible" vs "Likely" Rotamers

The population of glycosidic linkage rotamers depends on the type of monosaccharides involved as well as the linkage positions. Additionally, steric interactions and the exo-anomeric effect further restrict the population of the rotamers, resulting in a set of most likelys shapes. However, you may also generate and download all possible rotamers if desired.

Further reading:

The discussion around Figures 4-6 in Nivedha et al "Importance of Ligand Conformational Energies in Carbohydrate Docking: Sorting the Wheat from the Chaff" JCC 2014.