Revision as of 17:54, 1 January 2014

1 Introduction

This page is dedicated to explaining how to install OpenFOAM in Fedora.

If you do not yet feel comfortable using Linux, then perhaps you better first read the page Working with the Shell and train a bit with the shell/terminal environments, so you can have a better perception of the steps shown below.

2 Copy-Paste steps

A few notes before you start copy-pasting:

1. Lines that start with # don't have to be copy-pasted. They are just comments to let you know what's going on.
2. One wrong character is enough for breaking this guide, so make sure you can read the characters properly or that the installed language system does not break the copied characters!

2.1 Fedora 18

Here you have at least two choices:

• You can install the RPM packages, which provide a quick and easy way for having a working installation of OpenFOAM 2.2.0. This is the quickest solution for beginners and instructions are provided here: Fedora RPM Pack Installation
• You can install from source, by either:
  • Following the official instructions from here: Source Pack Installation
  • Or by following the detailed step-by-step instructions below...

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: None so far...

Steps:

1. Switch to root mode (administrator), to install the necessary packages:

   sudo -s

   • If the 'sudo' command tells you're not in the sudoers list, then run:

     su -

2. Install the necessary packages:

   yum groupinstall 'Development Tools' 
   yum install openmpi openmpi-devel qt-devel qt-webkit-devel zlib-devel cmake wget

3. Now exit from the root mode:

   exit

4. Download and unpack (here you can copy-paste all in single go):

   #OpenFOAM downloading and installation
   cd ~
   mkdir OpenFOAM
   cd OpenFOAM
   wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/foam/OpenFOAM-2.2.0.tgz?use_mirror=mesh" -O OpenFOAM-2.2.0.tgz
   wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/foam/ThirdParty-2.2.0.tgz?use_mirror=mesh" -O ThirdParty-2.2.0.tgz
    
   tar -xzf OpenFOAM-2.2.0.tgz 
   tar -xzf ThirdParty-2.2.0.tgz

5. For building OpenFOAM itself, it depends on whether you have installed the i386 or x86_64 architecture of Fedora. To check this, run:

   uname -m

   Now, accordingly:

   • For i386:

     #forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
     module load mpi/openmpi-i386
      
     #here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
     source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.2.0/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI WM_ARCH_OPTION=32

     Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file:

     echo "alias of220='module load mpi/openmpi-i386; source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.2.0/etc/bashrc FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc

     Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.2.0 shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:

     of220
     

     For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.
   • For x86_64:

     #forcefully load Open-MPI into the environment
     module load mpi/openmpi-x86_64       
      
     #here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
     source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.2.0/etc/bashrc WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI

     Also, save an alias in the personal .bashrc file:

     echo "alias of220='module load mpi/openmpi-x86_64; source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.2.0/etc/bashrc FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc

     Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.2.0 shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:

     of220
     

     For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.
6. Now let's build OpenFOAM:
   (Warning: this may take somewhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours, depending on your machine.)
   

   #Go into OpenFOAM's main source folder
   cd OpenFOAM-2.2.0
    
   # This next command will take a while... somewhere between 30 minutes to 3-6 hours.
   ./Allwmake > make.log 2>&1
    
   #Run it a second time for getting a summary of the installation
   ./Allwmake > make.log 2>&1

7. To check if everything went well:

   #Check if icoFoam is working
   icoFoam -help
    
   #Edit the file "make.log" and check if there are any error messages
   #Example:
   gedit make.log
    
   #Create a tarball in case you've seen any errors (it's the first error that matters)
   #or if you don't understand the output
   #and attach the file "make.log.tar.gz" to a post in the designated thread
   tar -czf make.log.tar.gz make.log

8. Now, in order to build ParaView 3.12.0 that comes with OpenFOAM:

   cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
   ./makeParaView -qmake $(which qmake-qt4)
    
   cd $FOAM_UTILITIES/postProcessing/graphics/PV3Readers 
   wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
   ./Allwclean 
   ./Allwmake

9. Now you can go read the User Guide: official OpenFOAM User Guide

of220

Designated discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: None so far...