[markc]

As a new linux user I started to learn OpenFOAM a week ago. I become more and more enthousiastic about it, as ship designers we will be able to solve a lot of interesting questions with it. However I encountered quite some small flaws during installation which I would like to share, hopefully they can be of use for other newbies.
Apart from the README and installation guide on the website, there are some things.
I have a 32 bit system with Win XP. I made a partition and installed a basic installation of openSUSE 10.3 with KDE 3.5.7 window system. After that I downloaded and installed the next files:
OpenFoam-1.4.1.General.gtgz, OpenFOAM-1.4.1.linuxGccDOPt.gtgz in a new OpenFOAM directory.
Furthermore I installed in a linux directory:
gcc-4.1.0.linux.tar, j2sdk1.4.2_05.linux.tar and paraview-2.4.2.linux.tar.
It appeared that in openSUSE I still had to install:
libelf0
I simply used Yast for this task.
Furthermore I had to execute the next command:
export LIBXCB_ALLOW_SLOPPY_LOCK=true
This is an openSUSE 10.3 issue. For more information, see http://en.opensuse.org/xlib.lock
It was necessary for FoamX and paraview to run. I put this command in the bashrc file.
Furthermore:
in the packages there are some incorrect version numbers.
paraview-2.4.2 was downloaded but in the .bashrc file, the version was called 2.4.1 . Something small but it costed me quite some time before I found it.
Something similar counts for the version of Gcc. The supplied version did not match the version number in the bashrc file. However, for me it works best with the wrong number. the foamInstallationTest says that Gcc is not installed, a critical error. But so far I can do everything I need. When I supplied the correct number, other things went wrong (at this moment I forget what exactly).
Therefore my question: could someone explain me once more what Gcc is needed for? Do you only need it when you build Foam from scratch or when you are going to make applications your self? And when foamInstallationTest says that Gcc is not installed, does it than also not recognize the system Gcc compiler?
I would like to conclude with my compliments for the package.

[santos]

You will need gcc when you want to compile your own applications, or recompile existant ones.

I think you will have no problems with using gcc from openSUSE, I've been using it myself for compiling my applications.

Regards,
José Santos