Getting started with CAELinux 2020

J. Cugnoni, www.caelinux.com, 8.2020

Content:

1. Welcome & License terms

2. Getting started and installing CAELinux

3. Softwares included in CAELinux 2020

4. Learning, Documentation & Tutorials

1. 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 Ubuntu 18.04 64bit OS and includes many open source modeling, simulation & design software. Most of the content 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 applications) and redistribute these software packages. But as it is nearly impossible to list the licenses of all included packages and libraries here, it is left to 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 software are provided without any warranty of any sort. CAELinux is developed by passionate open-source enthusiasts and scientists with the goal of popularizing the use of free / open-source codes in basic and applied research.

2. Getting started and installing CAELinux

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 (the default user has administrative rights)

Requirements:

PC or laptop with a 64bit x86 processor (AMD Phenom or later / Intel Core2 or later), at least 4Gb RAM, (ideally >=8Gb), GPU supporting OpenGL (>3.0), at least 35Gb of free space on HD (ideally >70Gb).

Creating a CAELinux bootable USB

• Before you can start using CAELinux, you will need to create a bootable USB drive. As CAELinux 2020 is much larger than 4.7Gb, it does not fit on regular DVDs. To create a bootable media, you will need a USB flash drive of at least 8Gb that will be formated during the process.

• Download the latest ISO from http://caelinux.sf.net and download Ventoy (to create a bootable USB) here: https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html . Run Ventoy to format your USB drive and install the bootloader (enable safeboot support if you have it enabled in your system). When finished, you will then see an empty USB drive in your file manager. Simply copy the ISO image in that folder and it is done ! You can even add other ISOs there to have a multiboot USB drive.

Booting CAELinux

• Insert your USB drive and enter the boot menu when starting your pc, Select the USB flash drive as boot media. If you have secureboot enabled, you will need to import the Ventoy key in your Secureboot database (if you Bios/UEFI system support this option, it will prompt you to select the certificate file to import). If it does not work, you will need to disable SecureBoot

• When you reach the Ventoy boot menu, simply select caelinux2020.iso and then select the default boot option for CAElinux.

• After a couple of minutes, you should have a fully functionnal CAELinux live environment. You can work in this “live” environement but all changes will be lost after shutdown.

• Or thanks to the Ubuntu Installer, you can very quickly turn your Live CAELinux environment to a full featured hard disk install which will let you customize and update your system as you may want.

Installation instructions :

As CAELinux is a customized Xubuntu 18.04 distribution, the installation instructions (and administration) for Xubuntu/Ubuntu all apply to CAELinux.
For more instructions on how to install CAELinux on hard drive, please follow the Ubuntu instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall

Important Notes & recommendations:

• Although all installation methods should work fine, if you master it, manual partitioning is usually recommended.

• You will need at least 35Gb for root '/' partition but >70Gb is recommended.

• A Swap partition of at least 1x your amount of RAM (up to 16Gb) is recommended as well

• You can safely update the system packages but to avoid issues with the custom installed CAE software, do not attempt to upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 or else. If you need more recent kernel or drivers, try installing ‘backported’ packages for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or use appimage packages / other PPAs for more recent applications.

• You can use CAELinux as a live distribution from USB, or install it to hard disk. You can also install it inside a virtual machine.

• For Virtual Machine installation, we strongly recommend using VMWare Player / Workstation for CAELinux virtualization as it is the only solution that we found that could run all the 3D applications flawlessly. Using VirtualBox will work for most cases except for SalomeCFD / Paraviz module. To install in a virtual machine, please select the Ubuntu 64bit hardware profile as a starting point.

3. Software included in CAELinux 2020

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).

4. Learning, Documentation & Tutorials

To get started, please have a look at the official tutorials or some excellent Youtube videos for the software you want to use. Here are some recommended links:

SalomeMeca Training material: https://www.code-aster.org/spip.php?rubrique68

Salome Documentation: https://www.salome-platform.org/user-section

Youtube channel FeaForAll, Cyprien Rusu, covers SalomeMeca – Code_Aster, SalomeCFD – Code_Saturne and much more, https://www.youtube.com/c/CyprienRusu/playlists

OpenFOAM tutorials: https://wiki.openfoam.com/Tutorials

… and many more.

CAELinux tutorials and wiki

CAELinux.org wiki contains a large number of additionnal tutorials and documents to help you master all these simulation codes. Even though some documentation may be outdated, it is a good reference for some more advanced modeling:

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

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

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 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 on their spare time. If you like CAELinux, we really encourage you to support the development of both CAELinux, Ubuntu / Debian packages or the original developers of the software you like 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 forum at : http://www.caelinux.org . Or write a blog on your experience and share it on social networks, or make a Youtube / Instagram video.

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 feedback / interaction is key to the development of open source codes!!