[will]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie to OpenFOAM and i've been working through the installation process for 1.4 onto Ubuntu. For various reasons I decided to install to a VMware virtual machine rather than onto the base OS and found you can download ready-to-run virtual machines from places such as http://chrysaor.info/

If my personal experience (and this board) are anything to go by, one of the main challenges for people using OpenFOAM is getting it installed and working in the first place.

So, why not have a new method of installation; the virtual machine. Download OpenFOAM already installed onto Ubuntu and you can get stuck straight in.

Obviously there are drawbacks, especially looking at the performance effects of running in a virtual machine... But it also solves the problem of having to hack around with Cygwin to get OpenFOAM working on Windows.

Am I onto something? Or just deluded?

Cheers
Will

[gschaider]

Hi Will!

A project that provides a VMWare image with OpenFOAM (amongst other things) already exists: http://www.caelinux.com/

(But of course: a dedicated OF-VMware-image might be a noce idea)

Bernhard

[will]

Hi Bernhard,

I didn't realise that was out there, thanks very much!

Cheers
Will

[markc]

Hi All,

Any experiences in using OF on Virtual Machine?
Does anyone know how to create a linux server which can be contacted via internet using any kind of OS? This should be possible right?

Brgds,

Mark

[gwierink]

Hi Mark,

I used OF in a virtual machine for while, before I switched completely to linux. I used vmware on a separate partition of about 10 GB with (at that time) Fedora Core 6. It worked fine, although getting FoamX to work is a bit of a hassle. If you don't use FoamX, but just via the command line and go straight to paraview it works great. One thing to look at though is to set the memory vmware assigns to your virtual machine high enough. It defaults at a quite low value and then it just takes ages to run a simulation.

Cheers,

Gijs

[markc]

Ok, I am running OF on a dual boot machine, using the caelinux distribution, which runs perfectly from the beginning. However, now I want some collegues to also use OF and to share projects etc. Therefore it should be perfect to have a linux server with the caelinux distribution (incl OF) and everyone who wants to use it log in via internet/intranet from their own computer (WinXP). It is not desired to change all computers to a dualboot, nor it is to assign certain workstations to soley linux/OF systems. It is being told that a server setup like proposed here is possible. Anyone has experience with it?

Brgds,

Mark