Getting started with CAELinux 2011

J. Cugnoni, www.caelinux.com, 12.10.2011

Content:

1. Welcome & License terms

2. Introduction tutorial

3. Softwares included in CAELinux 2011

4. Installing & upgrading CAELinux

Welcome & License terms:

First of all, we would like to thank you for your interest in CAELinux which we hope will fulfill your needs in Computer Aided Engineering. This Linux distribution is based on the excellent basis provided by Ubuntu 10.04.3 64bit OS and includes an always increasing number of open source modeling, simulation & design software. Most of the content (~95%) of CAELinux is provided under the well known “free” / open-source licenses GPL  or  LGPL  (Gnu Public Licenses) which allows you to freely use (private & commercial) and redistribute these software packages. But as it is nearly impossible to check the licenses of all included packages, it is your responsibility to verify the licensing terms of the software that you are using. The authors of the distribution are not responsible for these licensing aspects and this distribution and all the included softwares are provided without any warranty. CAELinux is developed by passionate open-source loving engineers and scientists with the goal of popularizing the use of free / open-source codes in basic and applied research.

Introduction

The predefined login and passwords in CAELinux are:

   Normal user account:          
     
        user: caelinux       password: caelinux     

  Admin / Root user account : 

         in Ubuntu, there is no 'root' account, to run administrative tasks, just use the "sudo" command and enter your own user password to validate

For a very quick introduction to CAELinux capabilities, you should follow the Installation Manual  and the first Videos Tutorials.

    Ubuntu Installation manual (PDF):
        See:   /opt/caelinux/docs/HowToInstallUbuntu.pdf
                  Note: manual partitioning is recommended, you need at least 20Gb for root '/' partition

    Video Tutorials:

       Linear static stress analysis of a piston (Salome_Meca / Code-Aster)

           PDF tutorial (recommended): /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/piston/Piston_tutorial.pdf
           Video tutorial:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/piston/PistonTutorial.htm (based on an older version)
           Online video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQBHNKnSzIQ (recent version of Salome)

       Simple 3D fluid dynamics analysis of a Y-shaped pipe (Salome & OpenFOAM)
          Geometry:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/pipe/PipeGeom.htm
           Meshing:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/pipe/PipeMesh.htm
           CFD solution:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/pipe/PipeOpenFOAM.m4v

       Simple 3D fluid dynamics analysis of a Y-shaped pipe (Salome & Code-Saturne)
          Geometry:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/pipe/PipeGeom.htm
           Meshing:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/pipe/PipeMesh.htm
           CFD solution:  /opt/caelinux/docs/tutorials/pipe/PipeSaturne.m4v

       Online tutorials and wiki
           CAELinux.org wiki contains a large number of additionnal tutorials and documents to help you master all these simulation codes. Check out the following pages for more information:

           http://www.caelinux.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

           http://caelinux.org/wiki/index.php/CAELinux2011_Tutorials

           http://www.caelinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc:CAETutorials

           http://www.caelinux.org/wiki/index.php/Contrib:Main

Software included in CAELinux 2011

Here is a non exhaustive list of CAE software packages included in CAELinux as well as some key informations to get started. Some of the software can be started from Desktop shortcuts or from the CAE start menu, but most of the console based tools will require that you use our special shell called 'Command line tools' (in CAE start menu).

Installing & upgrading CAELinux

Thanks to the very simple Ubuntu LiveCD installer, you can very quickly turn your LiveDVD CAELinux environment to a full featured hard disk install which will let you customize and update your system as you may want. We will not detail the installation steps here, but we highly recommend that you read the documentation on Ubuntu website (https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/index.html) or  /opt/caelinux/docs/HowToInstallUbuntu.pdf . To install CAELinux 2011 on hard disk, you will need at least 20Gb of free space on an ext3 or ext4 partition and preferably 2Gb on a Linux Swap partition (use Ubuntu disk partitioning tool to resize or create your partitions & don't forget to BACKUP your data FIRST).

After installation, you will be able to customize your OS, install new packages & update your system (kernel, 3D drivers etc...) with the very efficient Ubuntu administrative tools (in Menu->System). From there, you will be able to configure all the aspects of the system and directly install & update softwares from Internet with the Synaptics software package manager.

Hardware support: 3D Drivers

Ubuntu 10.04 includes open source 3D drivers for most of the recent graphic cards and thus should give you a decent 3D acceleration “out of the box”. However, for a better hardware support / performance, you may need to install specific "proprietary" drivers (hardware 3D acceleration, Wifi). Specific proprietary drivers are not preinstalled but may be proposed by Ubuntu after installation: go to Menu->System->Administrative Tools->Hardware Drivers to activate proprietary drivers for your card. If Ubuntu does not offer you specific drivers, you may find a solution on Ubuntu.com forums and wiki.


Troubleshooting

If you encounter problems with the liveDVD, you can try the following:

• Boot in an alternate mode: in  the  boot menu of the liveDVD, choose one of the alternate mode like ForceVesa graphic mode for example.

• If the system hangs during installation or during a normal use in LiveDVD mode, try to check your DVD on another computer, DVD media are very sensitive and have a lot of incompatibility problems

• If you experience any OS related problem, you will certainly find a solution on Ubuntu.com forums or wiki; remember that there are millions of Ubuntu users over the world, and that the community is very active and responsive !!

For any other question regarding CAELinux or one of the included software, you can visit our forums at http://www.caelinux.com

Supporting the development of CAELinux

CAELinux is a collection of a large number of Open Source programs, so first of all, we should all be very grateful to the many developers that have spent a lot of their  time in the development of these great software packages. CAELinux is developed by passionate developers without any external financial support. If you like CAELinux, we really encourage you to support the development of both CAELinux and Ubuntu / Debian packages with a donation  (even small). For more information about donation to the CAELinux developers, just visit our website:  http://www.caelinux.com  

Additionally, the documentation / translation / tutorials are essential to help beginners in their learning process. If you feel like contributing to CAELinux Documentation or if you are developing a small utility that would be useful to all of us, you should participate and share your experience in the CAELinux Wiki at : http://www.caelinux.org

And remember, making Open Source software grow and improve is a dynamic process, where the most critical point is probably to create an active community of users and developers: in this sense any question / interaction is vital to the development of open source codes!! 

The CAELinux websites are here to create this common "share point" where developers & users can interact.
So if you like CAELinux, the most important contribution that you could bring is probably to keep its community alive by posting/answering questions on the forums or the wiki, and by spreading the distribution among your friends and colleagues.