OpenFOAM is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
later version. See the file COPYING in this directory, for a description of
the GNU General Public License terms under which you can copy the
files.
2 System requirements
OpenFOAM is developed and tested on Linux, but should work with other
Unix style systems. To check your system setup, execute the foamSystemCheck
script in the bin/ directory of the OpenFOAM installation. If no problems are
reported, proceed to “3. Installation”; otherwise contact your system
administrator.
If the user wishes to run OpenFOAM in 32/64-bit mode they should consult
the section “Running OpenFOAM in 32-bit mode”.
The ParaView 3.3 visualisation package requires that Qt version 4.3.x
MUST be installed on the system. Earlier or more recent versions (4.2.x or
4.4.x) will NOT work. To check whether Qt4 is installed, and the version,
type:
qmake --version
The ParaView binary executables in the ThirdParty distribution will only
work with PRECISELY the same version of Qt with which it was compiled. The
64-bit version of ParaView was compiled with Qt-4.3.1 (with openSuSE-10.3) and
the 32-bit version of ParaView was compiled with Qt-4.3.2 (with ubuntu-7.10). If
the user finds that a ParaView binary fails to run, then it is almost certainly due
to a conflict in compiled and installed Qt versions and they will need to consult
the section below on “Compiling ParaView and the PV3FoamReader
module.”
The default versions of Qt used by some GNU/Linux releases are as
follows.
The environment variable settings are contained in files in an etc/ directory in
the OpenFOAM release. e.g. in $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-<VERSION>/etc/
where <VERSION> corresponds to the version 1.4, 1.5, . . .
EITHER
if running bash or ksh (if in doubt type echo $SHELL), source
the etc/bashrc file by adding the following line to the end of your
$HOME/.bashrc file:
. $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-<VERSION>/etc/bashrc
Then update the environment variables by sourcing the $HOME/.bashrc file
by typing in the terminal:
. $HOME/.bashrc
OR
if running tcsh or csh, source the etc/cshrc file by adding the following line
to the end of your $HOME/.cshrc file:
Then update the environment variables by sourcing the $HOME/.cshrc file
by typing in the terminal:
source $HOME/.cshrc
3.1 Installation in alternative locations
OpenFOAM may also be installed in alternative locations. However, the
installation directory should be network available (e.g., NFS) if parallel
calculations are planned.
The environment variable ‘FOAM_INST_DIR’ can be used to find and source the
appropriate resource file. Here is a bash/ksh/sh example:
The value set in ‘$FOAM_INST_DIR’ will be used to locate the remaining parts of the
OpenFOAM installation.
4 Building from Sources (Optional)
If you cannot find an appropriate binary pack for your platform, you can build
the complete OpenFOAM from the source-pack. You will first need to compile or
obtain a recent version of gcc (we recomend gcc-4.3.?) for your platform, which
may be obtained from http://gcc.gnu.org/.
Install the compiler in
$WM_PROJECT_INST_DIR/ThirdParty/gcc-<GCC_VERSION>/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_COMPILER_ARCH/
and change the gcc version number in $WM_PROJECT_DIR/etc/settings.sh and
$WM_PROJECT_DIR/etc/settings.csh appropriately and finally update the
environment variables as in section 3.
Now go to the top-level source directory $WM_PROJECT_DIR and execute the
top-level build script ‘./Allwmake’. In principle this will build everything, but if
problems occur with the build order it may be necessary to update the
environment variables and re-execute ‘Allwmake’. If you experience difficulties
with building the source-pack, or your platform is not currently supported, please
contact ¡enquiries@OpenCFD.co.uk¿ to negotiate a support contract and we will
do the port and maintain it for future releases.
5 Testing the installation
To check your installation setup, execute the ‘foamInstallationTest’ script (in
the bin/ directory of the OpenFOAM installation). If no problems are reported,
proceed to getting started with OpenFOAM; otherwise, go back and check
you have installed the software correctly and/or contact your system
administrator.
6 Getting Started
Create a project directory within the $HOME/OpenFOAM directory named
<USER>-<VERSION> (e.g. ‘chris-1.5’ for user chris and OpenFOAM version 1.5)
and create a directory named ‘run’ within it, e.g. by typing:
Copy the ‘tutorial’ examples directory in the OpenFOAM distribution to the ‘run’
directory. If the OpenFOAM environment variables are set correctly, then the
following command will be correct:
Run the first example case of incompressible laminar flow in a cavity:
cd $HOME/OpenFOAM/$USER-$WM_PROJECT_VERSION/run/tutorials/icoFoam/cavity
blockMesh
icoFoam
paraFoam
7 Compiling Paraview 3.3 and the PV3FoamReader module
A version of Qt 4.3.x must be installed to compile ParaView. The
compilation is a fairly simple process using the supplied buildParaView3.3-cvs
script that has worked is our tests with other packages supplied in the
ThirdParty directory, namely cmake-2.4.6 and gcc-4.3.1. Execute the
following:
cd $FOAM_INST_DIR/ThirdParty
rm -rf ParaView3.3-cvs/platforms
buildParaView3.3-cvs
The PV3FoamReader module is an OpenFOAM utility that can be compiled
in the usual manner as follows:
cd $FOAM_UTILITIES/postProcessing/graphics/PV3FoamReader
11 Running OpenFOAM in 32-bit mode on 64-bit machines
Linux users with a 64-bit machine may install either the OpenFOAM 32-bit
version (linux) or the OpenFOAM 64-bit version (linux64), or both. The 64-bit is
the default mode on a 64-bit machine. To use an installed 32-bit version, the user
must set the environment variable $WM_32 (to anything, e.g. “on”) before
sourcing the etc/bashrc (or etc/cshrc) file. Unsetting WM_32 and re-sourcing
the etc/bashrc (or etc/cshrc) file will set up the user to run in 64-bit
mode.
