CFD Online Logo CFD Online URL
www.cfd-online.com
[Sponsors]
Home > Forums > Software User Forums > OpenFOAM > OpenFOAM Installation

openfoam1.5 on usb flash drive?

Register Blogs Members List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old   May 4, 2009, 17:41
Default openfoam1.5 on usb flash drive?
  #1
New Member
 
Tom van den Brink
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 3
Rep Power: 16
tom v.d brink is on a distinguished road
I am trying openfoam on my ubuntu box now and it is working but i would like to be more free in using different pc's also at work where we don't have linux.
so is it possible to add openfoam 1.5 to a usb flashdrive installation of linux.
and if so how and which distro would suite this?

also has any one tried this successfully and how is the speed then?

looking forward to your replies.
tom v.d brink is offline   Reply With Quote

Old   May 5, 2009, 04:04
Default
  #2
Member
 
sushant's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Switzerland
Posts: 40
Rep Power: 17
sushant is on a distinguished road
Just move your OpenFOAM folder to a USB drive. Now whenever you insert the USB drive it will mount (drive with label XYZ will usually mount somewhere like /mnt/XYZ or /media/XYZ, or you can configure manually with /etc/fstab) and you can create a symbolic link in your home folder that points to this OpenFOAM folder.

user@computer:~$ cd ~
user@computer:~$ ln -s /media/someDisk/OpenFOAM OpenFOAM

-- OPTIONALLY --

Your user folder, in which you would usually work (user-1.5.x in ~/OpenFOAM, for example on 1.5.x) would usually contain a lot of files and take up lots of space, so what I do to work around that is:

user@computer:~$ cd ~
user@computer:~$ mkdir user-OF-1.5.x
user@computer:~$ cd /media/someDisk/OpenFOAM
user@computer:/media/someDisk/OpenFOAM$ mv user-1.5.x/* ~/user-OF-1.5.x/
user@computer:/media/someDisk/OpenFOAM$ rm -r user-1.5.x
user@computer:/media/someDisk/OpenFOAM$ ln -s /home/user/user-OF-1.5.x user-1.5.x

Or you can just avoid this altogether and keep your case files in your home folder wherever you like them (may get messy).

As for speed and performance... let me know
sushant is offline   Reply With Quote

Old   May 5, 2009, 04:08
Default
  #3
Member
 
sushant's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Switzerland
Posts: 40
Rep Power: 17
sushant is on a distinguished road
And if you want to want an entire linux distro on the USB as well (didn't notice that earlier, sorry) then take a look at Pelican HPC or debian's utilities for making custom live distros (live.debian.com).
sushant is offline   Reply With Quote

Old   May 27, 2009, 04:50
Default
  #4
Senior Member
 
Rishi .
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 149
Rep Power: 17
hellorishi is on a distinguished road
Hi,

There is a Slax based OF. I have tried it from USB and it works out of box !
http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...tml#post216131
hellorishi is offline   Reply With Quote

Old   May 27, 2009, 05:00
Default
  #5
New Member
 
Tom van den Brink
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 3
Rep Power: 16
tom v.d brink is on a distinguished road
thank you very much every one for your efforts
in the end after doing some more reading i chose to get a usb harddrive 250gb and do a full ubuntu 9.04 install on that. that way i can update packages easier and have my full linux capabilities everywhere.
openfoam also works fine on this and so does parafoam.
speed seems to be okay. a bit slower then the desktop but i expected that as it has to read/write to and from the usb drive the whole session.
but i really like the clean boot from usb without having to change anything on the pc i run on.
tom v.d brink is offline   Reply With Quote

Old   May 28, 2009, 21:19
Default
  #6
Senior Member
 
Henrik Rusche
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Wernigerode, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany
Posts: 281
Rep Power: 18
henrik is on a distinguished road
Dear Tom,

yes, for a carry-around personal-installation this is a good solution.

There is one issue I came across regarding speed of USB distros. Some distros use compressed file systems. Hence, although it takes time to decompress on-the-fly, it's actually faster than a plain file system on a USB drive due to the better use of the limited bandwidth. However, this sets you back on flexibility (adding packages and so forth). SLAX gets around this by having each package in a compressed file which can be activated and deactivated while the system is running (overlayed file system).

Henrik
henrik is offline   Reply With Quote

Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Flash Tank Simulation Hamid Nabati FLUENT 0 February 16, 2007 02:21
Fluid Dynamcis and Flash David Ellenwood Main CFD Forum 0 December 27, 2004 18:50


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 06:04.