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To make OpenFOAM readily available to a larger range of users, OpenCFD works actively with the community surrounding respective Linux distributions to provide precompiled binary installations as system packages. The distributions currently include the following:

Debian/Ubuntu and openSUSE generally receive first attention:

1. Debian/Ubuntu is a very popular distribution with OpenFOAM users.
2. openSUSE is historically the internal development platform of OpenCFD Ltd. Since it is an RPM-based system, it is generally possible to use a well-crafted spec file to subsequently address RedHat-based distributions.

• Using the OpenFOAM package
• Installation locations
• Sub-packages
• Package structure (RPM, partly Debian)
• Package links
• Resources

Using the OpenFOAM package

After installation, the OpenFOAM environment can be accessed as described in running.

• The Debian and RPM packages always include the OpenFOAM shell sessions.
• If the openfoam-selector is available at the time of installation, the newly installed packages will be registered with it, allowing use of the openfoam-selector mechanism.

Installation locations

The packages have been designed to allow simultaneous installation of different OpenFOAM versions without file or package-name collisions. This lets users experiment with different OpenFOAM versions, perform back-to-back comparisons, or simply continue with an older version until completion of a particular project.

The system installation prefix /usr/lib/openfoam is used, below which individual versions are located. For example,

• /usr/lib/openfoam/openfoam1912/
• /usr/lib/openfoam/openfoam2006/
• ...

The OpenFOAM bash session wrapper will be created under /usr/bin. For example,

• /usr/bin/openfoam1912
• /usr/bin/openfoam2006
• ...

Sub-packages

Satisfying the wishes and requirements of all users is a difficult task. One user (or sysadmin) wants the "only install what I really need" approach [more control, less diskspace]. Another group of users prefers the "just install everything" approach [less control, more diskspace]. We have attempted to strike a reasonable balance between both. For any given base package (e.g., openfoam2006 etc), there are a variant of sub-packages ("only-what-I-need"), but also a default package for the "install-everything" folks.

Here are some common selections:

The longer descriptions:

Note the package names for Debian and RPM packages are intentionally kept very similar, except dev (Debian) vs. develop (RPM) names that follow the respective system conventions.

Package structure (RPM, partly Debian)

To allow smooth installation and use of multiple OpenFOAM versions on the same system, some installations use a meta-package structure:

The version-specific packages (eg, openfoam2006, openfoam1912) install into distinct directories so that it is possible to have multiple versions available on your systems. The top-level openfoam package registers which of the version-specific packages corresponds to the current release.

Package links

Resources

For precompiled packaging, the following content is provided for reference purposes, and to help when scripting:

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