Revision as of 18:30, 19 January 2013

1 Introduction

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

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 Ubuntu 12.04

Warning: These instructions are still being written!

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

Steps:

1. Note: Given the age difference of OpenFOAM 1.6 vs Ubuntu 12.04, these instructions will install the ParaView version that Ubuntu provides.
2. Switch to root mode (administrator) and install the necessary packages (run one line at a time):

   sudo -s
   #or
   su -
    
   #these 2 lines count as a single line, due to the blackslash "\" character
   apt-get install build-essential flex bison libreadline-dev libncurses-dev paraview
    
   exit

3. 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-1.6.General.gtgz?use_mirror=mesh" -O OpenFOAM-1.6.General.tgz
   wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/foam/ThirdParty-1.6.General.gtgz?use_mirror=mesh" -O ThirdParty-1.6.General.tgz
    
   tar xzf OpenFOAM-1.6.General.tgz 
   tar xzf ThirdParty-1.6.General.tgz

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

   uname -m

   Now, accordingly:

   • For i386:

     #update rules' files
     #wget "https://raw.github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.1.x/master/wmake/rules/linuxGcc43/c" -O wmake/rules/linuxGcc/c
     #wget "https://raw.github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.1.x/master/wmake/rules/linuxGcc43/c++" -O wmake/rules/linuxGcc/c++
      
     #fix the rules' files
     #sed -i -e 's/gcc/\$(WM_CC)/' wmake/rules/linuxGcc/c
     #sed -i -e 's/g++/\$(WM_CXX)/' wmake/rules/linuxGcc/c++
      
     #here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
     echo export WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 > $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/prefs.sh
     echo export WM_ARCH_OPTION=32 >> $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/prefs.sh
     source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc
      
     echo "source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc" >> $HOME/.bashrc

   • For x86_64:

     #update rules' files
     #wget "https://raw.github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.1.x/master/wmake/rules/linux64Gcc43/c" -O wmake/rules/linux64Gcc/c
     #wget "https://raw.github.com/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.1.x/master/wmake/rules/linux64Gcc43/c++" -O wmake/rules/linux64Gcc/c++
      
     #fix the rules' files
     #sed -i -e 's/gcc/\$(WM_CC)/' wmake/rules/linux64Gcc/c
     #sed -i -e 's/g++/\$(WM_CXX)/' wmake/rules/linux64Gcc/c++
      
     #here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
     echo export WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 > $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/prefs.sh
     source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc
      
     echo "source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/etc/bashrc" >> $HOME/.bashrc

5. 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-1.6
    
   #do some additional fixes
   sed -i -e 's=\.OpenFOAM=\.foam=' bin/paraFoam
    
   # 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

6. 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

7. Now you can go read the User Guide, which is located at $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.6/doc/Guides-a4/UserGuide.pdf.

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