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OpenFOAM README for version 1.5
1 Copyright
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".
2.1 Qt (from http://trolltech.com/products/qt)
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 <div id="table-of-contents">
<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
<div id="text-table-of-contents">
<ul>
<li><a href="#sec-1">1 Copyright</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-2">2 System requirements</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#sec-2.1">2.1 Qt (from http://trolltech.com/products/qt)</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#sec-3">3 Installation</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#sec-3.1">3.1 Installation in alternative locations</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#sec-4">4 Building from Sources (Optional)</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-5">5 Testing the installation</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-6">6 Getting Started</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-7">7 Compiling Paraview 3.3 and the PV3FoamReader module</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-8">8 Documentation</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-9">9 Help</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-10">10 Reporting Bugs in OpenFOAM</a></li>
<li><a href="#sec-11">11 Running OpenFOAM in 32-bit mode on 64-bit machines</a></li>
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.
* ubuntu-7.10: Version 4.3.2
* ubuntu-8.04: Version 4.3.4
* openSuSE-10.2: Version 4.2.1 - too old
* openSuSE-10.3: Version 4.3.1
* openSuSE-11.0: Version 4.4.0 - too new
Compilation and running of ParaView has been successful using the libraries downloaded in the "libqt4-dev" package on
ubuntu.
If you don't have an appropriate version of Qt installed you can download the sources from TrollTech e.g.: ftp://
ftp.trolltech.com/qt/source/qt-x11-opensource-src-4.3.5.tar.bz2 and compile and install in /usr/local or some other
location that does to conflict with the pre-installed version.
Download and unpack the files in the $HOME/OpenFOAM directory as described in: http://www.OpenFOAM.org/download.html
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:
Then update the environment variables by sourcing the $HOME/.bashrc file by typing in the terminal:
* 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 $HOME/.cshrc file by typing in the terminal:
OpenFOAM may also be installed in alternative locations. However, the installation directory should be network
available (e.g., NFS) if parallel calculations are planned.
The environment variable 'FOAM_INST_DIR' can be used to find and source the appropriate resource file. Here is a bash/
ksh/sh example:
* export FOAM_INST_DIR=/data/app/OpenFOAM
* foamDotFile=$FOAM_INST_DIR/OpenFOAM-<VERSION>/etc/bashrc
* [ -f $foamDotFile ] && . $foamDotFile
* setenv FOAM_INST_DIR /data/app/OpenFOAM
* foamDotFile=$FOAM_INST_DIR/OpenFOAM-<VERSION>/etc/bashrc
* if ( -f $foamDotFile ) source $foamDotFile
The value set in '$FOAM_INST_DIR' will be used to locate the remaining parts of the OpenFOAM installation.
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.
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.
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:
* mkdir -p $HOME/OpenFOAM/${USER}-${WM_PROJECT_VERSION}/run
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:
* cp -r $WM_PROJECT_DIR/tutorials $HOME/OpenFOAM/${USER}-${WM_PROJECT_VERSION}/run
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
* ./Allwclean
* ./Allwmake
http://www.OpenFOAM.org http://www.OpenFOAM.org/discussion.html
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_ARCH_OPTION to 32 before sourcing the etc/bashrc (or etc/cshrc) file.