Installing WooDEM (on MacOSX with VirtualBox and Linux/Ubuntu), and running a .py script simulation.

Installing WooDEM (on MacOSX with VirtualBox and Linux/Ubuntu), and running a .py script simulation.

Hi,

This is a summary of solved questions turned into a 9 step tutorial for newbies, mostly about how to install WooDEM and load a .py file.

If you have a Mac with OSX you can start at the first step and how to set up Ubuntu (Linux), if you already have Ubuntu (latest version) you can jump to point (5).

Note I have subdivided the 9 steps into 3 sections:
A. (1-4) Installing Ubuntu (Linux) on a Mac
B. (5-6) Installing Woo-DEM in Linux
C. (7-9) Loading .py scripts for WooDEM

— A. Installing Ubuntu (Linux) on a Mac —

1. To get Linux running on a Mac you need virtualization software, there are multiple programs such as Parallels, Fusion (VM-ware) or Bootcamp; but I chose VirtualBox because it is free (https://www.virtualbox.org) and I just want to give things a try, so go ahead download Virtualbox and install it.

2. Once installed you COULD download the Ubuntu (Linux) from the Ubuntu-website, but I chose to to download a disk image with preinstalled stuff from http://virtualboximages.com

On the side, under ‘Featured’ there is a list of VDI’s (Virtual Disk Images) that you can choose from. First you need to look for Ubuntu, because that’s what the Woo-developer uses, second you need to look for the latest version ‘cause Woo-DEM is under constant development, and third you need to look at your processor, in the list there’s the i386 or amd64 version, if you use a 64-but intel processor you go for the amd64 version.

Keep in mind that the VDI is a heavy download (1GB+) so you’ll need a fast internet connection for that.

I chose: ‘Ubuntu 14.04 LTS amd64 Desktop VirtualBox VDI Virtual Compute’
http://virtualboximages.com/Ubuntu+14.04+LTS+amd64+Desktop+VirtualBox+VDI+Virtual+Computer

Attention, on file page there is the ‘Login Information’ for your new Ubuntu-OS:
username/password: adminuser/adminuser
Root Password: adminuser (sudo)

3. Once the VDI-rar is download, unpack, open the VirtualBox application, choose New.

- Give it a ‘Name’ (Whatever)
- Select Linux at ‘Type’
- and in my case Ubuntu (64 bit) at ‘Version’

Continue, and give it a lot of Memory (RAM) somewhere close to orange.

Continue, and select ‘Use an existing virtual hard drive file’, choose the unpacked VDI-file (Ubuntu-14.04-amd64-Desktop.vdi in my case) and ‘Create’.
(You can double-check this process at http://virtualboximages.com/GettingStarted)

4. Now you started and Ubuntu is up and running, you need to open the ‘Terminal’, Mac users have the same program in the Utilities-folder in the Application-folder, in Ubuntu you can easily access it by pressing: ‘ctrl’ + ‘Alt’ + T

— B. Installing WooDEM in Linux —

5. For install Woo-DEM you need to open the Terminal and type in the command lines below (one line at a time). In between steps your password will be asked for, if you are using the VDI-image that password is ‘adminuser’ as mentioned earlier, if you followed a different path to getting here, you’ll have your own password.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eudoxos/woo-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-woo

(These 3 lines of code will download Woo-DEM straight from the launchpad-website:
https://code.launchpad.net/~eudoxos/+archive/woo-daily. BTW ‘sudo’ (substitute user do) allows a system administrator to give commands.

6. Once the installation is done, type in ‘woo’ and the program is started. You can then type in shortcuts such as F10 (top of keyboard) to load the user interface (UI).

The load button in the UI is for loading an existing simulation, another thing are preprocessors (where you see the horse, for instance) which are special objects for creating a simulation, like scripts but easily parametrizable and with the UI.

— C. Loading .py scripts for WooDEM —

7. Here’s a link to a .zip-file with a couple of simulations including one of a ‘gas’ of 500 frictionless ellipsoids (elastic collisions) made by Václav Šmilauer for my (http://800millionparticles.blogspot.com) project:
http://flux.doxos.eu/temp/ell2d-all.zip

8. I unzipped the file and named the map ‘woofiles’ and placed it in my ‘Home’ folder.

- The .py scripts are the simulations, the .xls files contain additional parameters to change (one simulation per line) if run in a batch.

- Those .py files are scripts which need to be given as arguments to woo on the command-line (woo something.py) and are immediately executed.

So for the .py files you just run those, that should do the job.

9. To load one of those scripts in my case in the ‘woofiles’ folder:

- Start the Terminal (ctrl+alt+T), type in ‘cd woofiles’ to change the directory to ‘woofiles’

(Note: the path, unless it starts with /, is relative to the current directory (cd) - that is always the case in UNIX)

- Next type in ‘woo ell2d-grp.py’

You can then type in F10 to bring up both UI’s and start playing.