Building Elmer on Ubuntu 12.04

This page describes a modified process for building Elmer FEM software from source (at rev 6279) specifically on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. It attempts to make use as much as possible of the pre-compiled libraries available in Ubuntu.

Dependencies

sudo apt-get install libsuitesparse-dev libsuitesparse-metis-dev liblapack-dev \
 libatlas-dev libarpack2-dev libparpack2-dev libmpich2-dev libhypre-dev \
 libqwt-dev libvtk5-qt4-dev libopencascade-dev libpythonqt2-dev libpythonqt2.0 \
 libftgl-dev
export F77=gfortran
export ELMER_HOME=$HOME/elmer-inst

MATC

Build the 'matc' dependency from Elmer and install it.

cd matc
./configure --prefix=$HOME/elmer-inst
make -j4
make install
cd ..

elmergrid

cd elmergrid
./configure --prefix=$HOME/elmer-inst
make -j4
make install
cd ..

Repeat above also with: meshgen2d eio hutiter

fem

cd fem
./configure --prefix=$HOME/elmer-inst --with-mpi-inc-dir=/usr/include/mpich2
make -j4
make install
cd ..

ElmerGUI

Enter the directory:

cd ElmerGUI

Some changes are required to the build script. The QWT library has a different name, and the VTK on Ubuntu 12.04 is a more recent version than named in the ElmerGUI.pri configuration file:

Invalid language.

You need to specify a language like this: <source lang="html">...</source>

Supported languages for syntax highlighting:

a4c, abap, abc, abnf, actionscript, ada, agda, alan, algol, ampl, amtrix, applescript, arc, arm, as400cl, ascend, asciidoc, asp, aspect, assembler, ats, autohotkey, autoit, avenue, awk, ballerina, bat, bbcode, bcpl, bibtex, biferno, bison, blitzbasic, bms, bnf, boo, c, carbon, ceylon, charmm, chill, chpl, clean, clearbasic, clipper, clojure, clp, cmake, cobol, coffeescript, coldfusion, conf, cpp2, critic, crk, crystal, cs_block_regex, csharp, css, d, dart, delphi, diff, dockerfile, dts, dylan, ebnf, ebnf2, eiffel, elixir, elm, email, erb, erlang, euphoria, exapunks, excel, express, factor, fame, fasm, felix, fish, fortran77, fortran90, frink, fsharp, fstab, fx, gambas, gdb, gdscript, go, graphviz, haml, hare, haskell, haxe, hcl, html, httpd, hugo, icon, idl, idlang, inc_luatex, informix, ini, innosetup, interlis, io, jam, jasmin, java, javascript, js_regex, json, jsp, jsx, julia, kotlin, ldif, less, lhs, lilypond, limbo, lindenscript, lisp, logtalk, lotos, lotus, lua, luban, makefile, maple, markdown, matlab, maya, mercury, meson, miranda, mod2, mod3, modelica, moon, ms, msl, mssql, mxml, n3, nasal, nbc, nemerle, netrexx, nginx, nice, nim, nix, nsis, nxc, oberon, objc, ocaml, octave, oorexx, org, os, oz, paradox, pas, pdf, perl, php, pike, pl1, plperl, plpython, pltcl, po, polygen, pony, pov, powershell, pro, progress, ps, psl, pure, purebasic, purescript, pyrex, python, q, qmake, qml, qu, r, rebol, rego, rexx, rnc, rpg, rpl, rst, ruby, rust, s, sam, sas, scad, scala, scilab, scss, shellscript, slim, small, smalltalk, sml, snmp, snobol, solidity, spec, spn, sql, squirrel, styl, svg, swift, sybase, tcl, tcsh, terraform, tex, toml, tsql, tsx, ttcn3, txt, typescript, upc, vala, vb, verilog, vhd, vimscript, vue, wat, whiley, wren, xml, xpp, yaiff, yaml, yaml_ansible, yang, zig, znn

With those changes, the build completes:

export ELMER_HOME=$HOME/elmer-inst
qmake
make -j4
make install
cd ..

post

cd post
./configure --prefix=$HOME/elmer-inst
make -j4
make install
cd ..

Testing the result

export PATH=$PATH:$ELMER_HOME/bin
ElmerGUI

The GUI opens, but still working on a full working example!

See also

The official build for Elmer 6.1.0 in Ubuntu, with a range of patches which might be superceded by now: http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/elmer

Note in particular the 'debian' tarball, elmerfem_6.1.0.svn.5396.dfsg-2ubuntu1.debian.tar.gz which contains the actual patches used by Ubuntu for that 6.1.0.svn.5396 release.