I installed MFiX on CentOS 7, and this is the error I am getting:
(mfix-24.2) [ad@tngo ~]$ mfix
libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
2024-07-05 15:14:49.827 ( 9.353s) [ AB272740]vtkOpenGLRenderWindow.c:511 ERR| vtkXOpenGLRenderWindow (0x556eb05a4950): GLEW could not be initialized: Missing GL version
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Also, how do I run the tutorials from CLI? Section 6.2 discusses this, but I can’t follow it. In which directory should I run and find the .mfx file?
6.2.2 Running From Command Line If you have a project file <RUN_NAME>.mfx saved in a project directory named <RUN_NAME>, navigate to that project directory to launch the default solver locally. One can accomplish this with the following commands: > cd <RUN_NAME> > mfixsolver -f <RUN_NAME>.mfx For example, to run the 3D fluidized bed tutorial, with the project file FB3D.mfx created in the GUI and saved in a directory FB3D: > cd FB3D > mfixsolver -f FB3D.mfx
Our compute cluster at NETL has moved from CentOS7 to Rocky Linux, so we are no longer testing on CentOS7. The conda-forge packages we use for VTK etc are supposed to work on CentOS7 but over time support for this platform is decreasing. I’ll try to set up a CentOS7 VM for testing but this will take a little while.
To run from the command line, we suggest creating a new directory for each project. You can call the directory anything you want (the text in the manual is a bit confusing, I will update that). Just create a directory, put your project file in that dir, change to that directory, and run mfixsolver -f my_proj.mfx (or mfixsolver -f mfix.dat if you called it that). Actually, if you use the default solver (not the batch one) it contains a “chdir” command that will change to the project dir, so mfixsolver -f /path/to/my_project.mfx will work - I’m not sure if the “batch” solver does that though.
I have set up a CentOS7 instance and can confirm that VTK is not working on this platform. I will try to find a workaround but I’m not sure it’s possible. CentOS7 is officially “end of life” and support for it is disappearing quickly. I can’t guarantee that we will be able to get MFiX to run on this OS. Is it possible to update the OS?
You can try running mfix --novtk which will get you a partially-functioning MFiX - none of the visualisation will be available, but you can use the model setup and run features. I spent a little time on it yesterday but getting VTK to run on CentOS7 seems like an uphill battle, if not a complete impossibility.
Can I still run the models without the VTK working? I have not worked with .RES, .pvd, .vtk and .vtu file types, but will I be able to post process the outputs on Paraview installed on my local system without any errors?
mfixsolver -f file_name.mfx for the tutorials work!
How do I generate the .stl mesh files without MFiX GUI?
You can run MFiX without VTK but you will be limited in what you can do. It’s interesting that you got Paraview to run … is that on CentOS7 too or a different OS? Because Paraview requires VTK…
I would suggest using the GUI to construct the input file.
You don’t have to do this but it’s a lot more work to do it “by hand”. If you choose to take that approach, the “Keyword reference” section in the MFiX User Guide will help you.