[boffin5]

Hi all,


After running OF8 for over a year on a laptop, using Virtualbox and ubuntu, I upgraded my hardware to a powerful desktop PC using an AMD Epyc CPU.


Ever since, I have had problems with the ubuntu screen turning black after login, and on the rare occasions that it actually doesn't, I get 'VBox client' error messages popping up every 2 seconds. I haven't been able to do anything with OF, and have spent hours trying to resolve the problems, without success.


I am just about ready to quit with Virtualbox and start over by implementing QEMU, along with ubuntu. But I must say that, after watching the videos, installation looks complicated. However, I may be forced to go that route.


Any thoughts?

[Erdi]

Have you tried WSL? (windows subsystem for linux) WSL is a linux environment inside windows but much much quicker than virtualbux since it is a compatibility layer. And you can install ubuntu,debian, kali... with it. You wont have the full desktop environment but you can install openfoam on it and with some gui modules it becomes like ubuntu itself. I mostly use the debian distribution for coding and you can axcess your windows files from linux or linux files from windows too. So I would highly recommend it if you want a unix environment on a windows machine.

[Yann]

Hi Alan,

I go along with what Erdi said: WSL is definitely my first choice if I need to run OpenFOAM on a Windows system. You can run OpenFOAM on Ubuntu from WSL and you have direct access to your files from Windows. I stopped using virtualbox the day I tried WSL.

By the way, since you have invested in a dedicated machine, why not just installing Ubuntu on it? This would give you better performance.

Regards,
Yann

[boffin5]

Thanks Erdi and Yann,


I didn't realize that it's possible to install Ubuntu directly. What I have been doing, is to implement WSL2 on my new machine. Or rather, trying to do it.


There is a wonderful site on how to install Ubuntu and WSL2: https://medium.com/geekculture/how-t...2-71f4b78431a4


It has a lot of steps, and after going through the process, I get to the last step to bring up Ubuntu, and am presented with the message: 'fatal error - another xserver is already running.' For the last 2 weeks I have been searching all sorts of sites to try to resolve this issue, but so far without any luck. At this point, I am considering running up the white flag and resorting to paid professional help.


But, with your suggestion, Yann, I might have another avenue to pursue. So in the morning, I shall start checking in to it! If you have any guides or info to jump start my search, I would appreciate it, as well as all the other help you have given me.


Alan w

[Yann]

Hi Alan,

Don't bother trying to setup GUI, you don't need it.
With WSL you can access your linux filesystem right from the windows explorer by default and you also have access to the windows filesystem from Linux in the terminal. So you can put your cases in your windows user directory and access it from Linux.

Just install ParaView on windows and an editor such as notepad++ and you're all set to setup your cases from windows, run it with openfoam on WSL and then post-process on windows with ParaView.

https://openfoam.org/download/windows/

Last option, the best one for performance: install Ubuntu on your machine. Basically you have to download the ubuntu image of the version you want to install, create a bootable USB stick using this image, boot on the USB stick and follow instructions to install Ubuntu.
I guess the official tutorial should be a good start: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install...top#1-overview

The simplest case is to just install Ubuntu on your machine. If you want to keep Windows on the machine, you can go for a Dual Boot install where you can choose to boot on Linux or Windows during startup: https://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu-1...ows-8-81-uefi/

Let us know how it goes,
Yann