1 Introduction

This page is dedicated to explaining how to install OpenFOAM in Debian. This instructions page might send you to the one for Ubuntu basically due to the close similarity between Ubuntu and Debian, since Ubuntu derives from Debian.

If you do not yet feel comfortable using Linux, then perhaps you better first read the page Working with the Shell and train a bit with the shell/terminal environments, so you can have a better perception of the steps shown below.

2 Copy-Paste steps

A few notes before you start copy-pasting:

Lines that start with # don't have to be copy-pasted. They are just comments to let you know what's going on.
One wrong character is enough for breaking this guide, so make sure you can read the characters properly or that the installed language system does not break the copied characters!

2.1 Debian 6.0 (aka Squeeze)

Here you have at least two choices:

You can install the Deb packages, which provide a quick and easy way for having a working installation of OpenFOAM 2.1.1. This is the quickest solution for beginners and instructions are provided here: Download v2.1.1 | Ubuntu
- WARNING: Debian itself is not yet officially supported using these Deb packages. You'll have to use a hack, where this line:
```
VERS=$(lsb_release -cs)
```
  should be replaced with this one:
```
VERS=lucid
```
You can install from source, by either:
- Following the official instructions from here: Download v2.1.1 | Source Pack
- Or by following the detailed step-by-step instructions below...

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

Steps:

Switch to root mode (administrator), to install the necessary packages:
```
sudo -s
```
- If the 'sudo' command tells you're not in the sudoers list, then run:
```
su -
```
Update the apt-get cache by running:
```
apt-get update
```

Install the necessary packages:

apt-get install build-essential flex bison zlib1g-dev qt4-dev-tools libqt4-dev gnuplot libreadline-dev \
libncurses-dev libxt-dev libopenmpi-dev openmpi-bin

Now exit from the root mode:
```
exit
```

Download and unpack (here you can copy-paste all in single go):

#OpenFOAM downloading and installation
cd ~
mkdir OpenFOAM
cd OpenFOAM
wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/foam/OpenFOAM-2.1.1.tgz?use_mirror=mesh" -O OpenFOAM-2.1.1.tgz
wget "http://downloads.sourceforge.net/foam/ThirdParty-2.1.1.tgz?use_mirror=mesh" -O ThirdParty-2.1.1.tgz
 
tar -xzf OpenFOAM-2.1.1.tgz 
tar -xzf ThirdParty-2.1.1.tgz

For building OpenFOAM itself, it depends on whether you have installed the i386 or x86_64 architecture of Ubuntu. To check this, run:

uname -m

Now, accordingly:

For i386:

#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
echo export WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 > OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/prefs.sh
echo export WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI >> OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/prefs.sh
echo export WM_ARCH_OPTION=32 >> OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/prefs.sh

For x86_64:

#here you can change 4 to the number of cores you've got
echo export WM_NCOMPPROCS=4 > OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/prefs.sh
echo export WM_MPLIB=SYSTEMOPENMPI >> OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/prefs.sh

Now to activate the OpenFOAM environment and save an alias in the personal .bashrc file, simply by running the following commands:
```
source $HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/bashrc
 
echo "alias of211='source \$HOME/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.1.1/etc/bashrc FOAM_SETTINGS'" >> $HOME/.bashrc
```
Note: This last line means that whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.1.1 shell environment. In other words, whenever you start a new terminal, you should run:
```
of211
```
For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Now let's build OpenFOAM:
(Warning: this may take somewhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours, depending on your machine.)

#Go into OpenFOAM's main source folder
cd OpenFOAM-2.1.1
 
# This next command will take a while... somewhere between 30 minutes to 3-6 hours.
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1
 
#Run it a second time for getting a summary of the installation
./Allwmake > log.make 2>&1

To check if everything went well:
1. Check if icoFoam is working, by running this command:
```
icoFoam -help
```
  which should tell you something like this:
```
Usage: icoFoam [OPTIONS]
options:
  -case <dir>       specify alternate case directory, default is the cwd
  -noFunctionObjects
                    do not execute functionObjects
  -parallel         run in parallel
  -roots <(dir1 .. dirN)>
                    slave root directories for distributed running
  -srcDoc           display source code in browser
  -doc              display application documentation in browser
  -help             print the usage
```
  Note: And keep in mind that you need to be careful with the letter case of the command. It's icoFoam, not icoFOAM.
2. If the previous command failed to work properly, then edit the file log.make and check if there are any error messages. A few examples on how you can edit this file:
  - By using kwrite:
```
kwrite log.make
```
  - By using gedit:
```
gedit log.make
```
  - By using nano:
```
nano log.make
```
    You can then exit by using the key combination Ctrl+X and following any instructions it gives you.
  Note: It's the first error message that matters.
3. If you don't understand the output, then please compress the log-file log.make and attach the compressed file to a post in the designated thread.
  If you do not know how to create a compressed file, then try one of the following examples:
  - You can compress the file with gzip by running this command:
```
gzip < log.make > log.make.gz
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named log.make.gz to a post in the designated thread.
  - Or you can compress one or more log-files into a tarball package file, by running this command:
```
tar -czf logs.tar.gz log.*
```
    Then attach the resulting package file named logs.tar.gz to a post in the designated thread.
4. Instructions on how to further diagnose the issue yourself, have a look at the section Common errors when building OpenFOAM from source code in the page FAQ/Installation and Running.

Debian 6.0 comes with CMake 2.8.2, but lets play it safe and do a custom build that provides CMake 2.8.3:

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
wget "https://raw.github.com/wyldckat/scripts4OpenFOAM3rdParty/master/getCmake"
chmod +x getCmake
./getCmake
 
#We need to fix a damaged file
sed -i -e 's=stddeh.h=stddef.h=' cmake-2.8.3/Utilities/cmcurl/strtoofft.h
 
./makeCmake
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS

Now, in order to build ParaView 3.12.0 that comes with OpenFOAM:

cd $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR
./makeParaView
 
cd $FOAM_UTILITIES/postProcessing/graphics/PV3Readers 
wmSET $FOAM_SETTINGS
./Allwclean 
./Allwmake

Now you can go read the User Guide, where you may have more than one choice:
1. Which you can find a local copy of the User Guide by running the following command:
```
ls -A1 $WM_PROJECT_DIR/doc/Guides*/*UserGuide*.pdf
```
  - You should see two available formats: A4 and US-Letter.
  - But if it instead tells you that there is No such file or directory, then the OpenFOAM environment is possibly not properly activated.
2. You can also find the more recent OpenFOAM Foundation User Guides online at the following page: official OpenFOAM User Guide - but be careful if you use the version that is too much ahead of the version you are currently using, given that some features have changed overtime.

Reminder: Whenever you start a new terminal window or tab, you should run the alias command associated to the OpenFOAM 2.1.1 shell environment. In other words, run the following command whenever you start a new terminal:

of211

For more information on this topic, read section Using aliases to help manage multiple OpenFOAM versions in the page Installation/Working with the Shell.

Discussion thread where you can ask questions about these steps: No thread available. Please a create a new thread in the forum.

2.2 Debian Wheezy

Here you have at least two choices:

You can install the Deb packages, which provide a quick and easy way for having a working installation of OpenFOAM 2.1.1. This is the quickest solution for beginners and instructions are provided here: Download v2.1.1 | Ubuntu
- WARNING: Debian itself is not yet officially supported using these Deb packages. You'll have to use a hack, where this line:
```
VERS=$(lsb_release -cs)
```
  should be replaced with this one:
```
VERS=precise
```
You can install from source, by either:
- Following the official instructions from here: Download v2.1.1 | Source Pack
- Since Debian Wheezy is at the time of this writing (12:43, 7 July 2013 (CEST)) very similar to Ubuntu 12.10, you can try following the instructions meant for this particular Ubuntu version: Installation/Linux/OpenFOAM-2.1.1/Ubuntu#Ubuntu_12.10

2.3 Debian Sid

Here you have at least two choices:

You can install the Deb packages, which provide a quick and easy way for having a working installation of OpenFOAM 2.1.1. This is the quickest solution for beginners and instructions are provided here: Download v2.1.1 | Ubuntu
- WARNING: Debian itself is not yet officially supported using these Deb packages. You'll have to use a hack, where this line:
```
VERS=$(lsb_release -cs)
```
  should be replaced with this one:
```
VERS=precise
```
You can install from source, by either:
- Following the official instructions from here: Download v2.1.1 | Source Pack
- Debian Sid is at the time of this writing (12:43, 7 July 2013 (CEST)) very similar to Ubuntu 13.10, which has not yet been released. You can try following the instructions meant for Ubuntu version 12.10, but it's very likely that it will fail: Installation/Linux/OpenFOAM-2.2.0/Ubuntu#Ubuntu_12.10

Installation/Linux/OpenFOAM-2.1.1/Debian

1 Introduction

Contents

2 Copy-Paste steps

2.1 Debian 6.0 (aka Squeeze)

2.2 Debian Wheezy

2.3 Debian Sid