Can FLUENT run under Linux with 2 Gb of RAM?

Paul Gregory

Greetings all

I am running FLUENT 5.3 on a Dual-Pentium machine with 2 Gb of RAM.

The problem is that when loading large mesh files (> 1 million cells) FLUENT often will be unable to load the case file into memory. While reading the grid, it will produce the error message "unable to allocate pointer to face number xxx". It will then clear the partially read grid.

I can get it to work, provided I reboot the system, and then immediately load the FLUENT case file. But if I start another program (e.g. Gambit), or quit that case file and try to load another one, I get the same error again. As you can understand, daily rebooting of a shared workstation is quite annoying.

I have re-compiled the kernel (2.2.16-22) to address 2 Gb of RAM and have enable large memory support. This made no difference. I also tried the 2.4.0 kernel.

At the moment, I am running a kernel with only 1 Gb of RAM, and everything works perfectly. I can run more than one case file at a time, and if I try to load in a case file which requires more RAM than is available, the kernel just uses swap space..as you would expect.

So in conclusion, has anyone run FLUENT succesfully on a single Linux box with over 1 Gb of RAM?

Cheers

Paul Gregory