FAQ – Software

SolidWorks 2024-25 is currently available for student and department installations. The version of SolidWorks available is tied to the academic calendar and new versions are typically made available to us during summer semester. After testing, we upgrade the labs in preparation for fall semester.

There are two editions of SolidWorks available, each is intended for a specific use:

The Student Premium Edition is the full version that matches the version installed in our labs feature for feature, however its license allows it to be installed on student laptops or home computers and activates directly with SolidWorks over the internet. The activation is valid for 1 year, at which point you will need to install the new version for the new academic year to continue using SolidWorks. Most students will want to install this edition of SolidWorks.

The Education Edition is intended to be installed on College of Engineering department desktops. It requires access to CADE’s network license server in order to run. So, while it can be installed on home computers, doing so requires either an active connection to the Campus VPN, or a monthly license borrowing procedure in order for the licensing to work properly. This is typically NOT the edition you want if you are installing SolidWorks on a laptop or home computer.

*** THIS SOFTWARE IS ONLY PROVIDED TO STUDENTS IN THE JOHN AND MARCIA PRICE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. ***

Installation instructions for both editions can be obtained by accessing the Solidworks folder in CADE’s U.Box repository.
Log in with your CIS credentials (UNID & CIS/UMail password). If you’ve not created your U.Box account, do so first.

Note:  Solidworks is a MS Windows-only program and will NOT run on macOS or Linux distros.  One could, however, use a Windows virtual machine or emulator to run it (VirtualBox, VMWare Player/Fusion, Parallels, CrossOver, VirtaulPC, etc.)

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Programs are limited to 8 hours of CPU time on the CADE lab1 and lab2 machines. We currently do not limit CUDA GPU simulations. Consider moving heavy parallel computations there.

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CADE offers a Gitlab Ultimate server at git.eng.utah.edu.
Login using your CADE credentials. Repositories are limited to 10GB by default.

Additionally, any lab1 and lab2 machine can be used to host a simple git repository.

1) A git repository can be created using the ‘git init MY_REPO’ command.
This will create and initialize a simple git repository called ‘MY_REPO’ in your current directory

2) If this is going to be a shared git repository, it is highly recommended to initialize using the ‘- -bare’ flag.
Example: ‘git init –bare MY_REPO’
This will create and initialize a simple git repository that does not include a working copy.

3) By default, git uses simple UNIX permissions for file management. This means that you can share access to the git repository based on the group in which the files belong to.

4) The git repository can be checked out via SSH from any lab1 or lab2 machine.
Example: ‘git clone ssh://USERNAME@lab[1-2]-[1-40].eng.utah.edu/path/to/repo’

5) If using the bare flag (which is highly recommended), the owner of the git repository should still check out their own working copy, so as to not overwrite other peoples’ changes.

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If you haven’t already done so, after reading the description and deciding which license applies to your situation, you’ll need to purchase Matlab from OSL here: http://software.utah.edu/news/mathworks.php (click the ‘Shop For Software’ button)

For students and single-machine installs, you should see the following link on your receipt or e-mail from software@utah.edu describing the process to download and install Matlab: Instructions for Single User Licenses

OSL also has a full FAQ page dedicated to the new campus license for MathWorks software: http://software.utah.edu/faq/license/mwc/

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If you are running out of space when simulating your project or intend to run something large, please put the simulation directory under /var/tmp/ /scratch/tmp.

To do so, in the Analog enviroment Window, you need to select Setup… :: Simulator/Directory/Host, then choose the spectreS simulator, and set the project directory as /scratch/tmp/USERNAME/  (where ‘USERNAME’ is your username- this is just for identifying your own simulation and not overpopulating or overwriting others files in /scratch/tmp). Remember to make copies of important input signal files and the spectreFinal in your home directory, because whatever in the ‘/scratch/tmp’ dir WILL be deleted each semester or if the file system dies. Keep in mind we don’t do backups on /scratch/tmp.

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Both Gambit and Fluent create lock files with the extension .lok. To find and remove your lock files run the following in a Terminal:
‘find ~/ -name “*.lok” -exec rm {} \;’

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Many times when trying to print a graph or a chart in Matlab, the paper size needs to be changed to ‘Standard’ or 8 1/2 x 11.

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If you use the default tcsh shell you should be all set (run ‘usermodify’ to verify).  To use L-Edit with a shell other than tcsh you need to add some variables to your shell’s .rc file (for bash: ~/.bashrc or zsh: ~/.zshrc).  Using your favorite text editor (vim, gedit or even emacs), open up the file and add the following:

For bash and zsh:

export TANNER_PATH=”/usr/local/apps/tanner_tools/tanner”
export PATH=”$:/usr/local/apps/tanner_tools/tanner/bin”
export TANNERHOST=155.98.108.4

Users of tcsh should not have to make any changes. However, if you do encounter problems, try adding the following to your ~/.tcshrc file:

setenv TANNER_PATH /usr/local/apps/tanner_tools/tanner
setenv TANNERHOST 155.98.108.4

also add the following to your PATH:

/usr/local/apps/tanner_tools/tanner/bin

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Cadence locks files so that files are not edited by two independent copies of Cadence. However, sometimes lock files are not correctly removed. In this case you may get a message like “Couldn’t get a write lock for…”. If you are sure that your files are not opened on another computer using Cadence you can use the command:
find ~/ -name “*.cdslck” -exec rm {} \;
to find and remove the offending lock files.

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Software on any given lab machine (or compute or Terminal server, virtual machine, etc.) may be different based on the OS or the intended purpose of the lab.  Not all software runs on all OS’s, and not all labs need the same software.

We update versions of the software from time to time, and may add or remove software based upon a licensing issue, compatibility with other software or hardware, a request from a professor, etc.

For these, and other reasons, we have found keeping an updated list of all lab software too cumbersome and counter-productive.  If you have a question about a particular software or package availability, check the machine you’re using, connect remotely, or contact us.

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To protect against data loss, the ANSYS program employs a file-locking mechanism. File locking helps to prevent you or another user from inadvertently opening a new job with the same name and in the same working directory as a currently running job.

When you open a job (jobname) from a given working directory, ANSYS creates a corresponding lock file called jobname.lock in that directory.  The lock file exists for as long as your job is running.  If you or someone else attempts to open another job of the same name (and in the same directory) as your currently running job, ANSYS detects the existence of the lock file and does not open the new job.  In interactive mode, ANSYS displays a dialog indicating that the file is locked, offering the option to override the lock.  In batch mode, the program exits, leaving the lock file intact.

To find and remove Ansys lock files, run
find ~/ -name “*.lock” -exec rm {} \;

ANSYS creates and checks for lock files by default.  If you prefer to disable the file-lock feature, specify the ANSYS_LOCK=OFF environment variable in your config60.ans file.

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A txt file is a text file and can be viewed using any text editor: vim, emacs, pico, nano, etc. from the Linux machines.  These also work on the Mac’s, as does TextEditor.app.  On Windows, try the Notepad.

There are also handfuls of document editors that run as GUI’s:  TextEditor.app, MS Word, OpenOffice.org – Writer, etc.

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Due to the large number of programs (387 at last count) and features they offer, it would take more time than we are willing to put into it to list everything. Many programs have: pulldown Help menus, man pages (‘man pine’ would give you the man page on pine) and very helpfull websites.

If your question can still not be answered or the answer you found does not work, don’t hesitate to ask us.

We will add links below to software tutorials and usage as we find/get a chance to make them.

Matlab:  http://www.che.utah.edu/~sutherland/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Interfacing ANSYS and LS-DYNA (OLD!!):  http://www.me.unlv.edu/~mbt/Impact_Characteristics/Interfacing%20ANSYS%20and%20LS-DYNA%20.htm

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What Matlab Toolboxes are available for students/research to use?  What features are licensed for use in Comsol?  Do we have a license for Fluent/Gambit?

Answers to these and more can be found on the license status page here:  https://flex.eng.utah.edu

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SolidWorks 2024-25 is currently available for student and department installations. The version of SolidWorks available is tied to the academic calendar and new versions are typically made available to us during summer semester. After testing, we upgrade the labs in preparation for fall semester.

There are two editions of SolidWorks available, each is intended for a specific use:

The Student Premium Edition is the full version that matches the version installed in our labs feature for feature, however its license allows it to be installed on student laptops or home computers and activates directly with SolidWorks over the internet. The activation is valid for 1 year, at which point you will need to install the new version for the new academic year to continue using SolidWorks. Most students will want to install this edition of SolidWorks.

The Education Edition is intended to be installed on College of Engineering department desktops. It requires access to CADE’s network license server in order to run. So, while it can be installed on home computers, doing so requires either an active connection to the Campus VPN, or a monthly license borrowing procedure in order for the licensing to work properly. This is typically NOT the edition you want if you are installing SolidWorks on a laptop or home computer.

*** THIS SOFTWARE IS ONLY PROVIDED TO STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. ***

Installation instructions for both editions can be obtained by accessing the Solidworks folder in CADE’s UBox repository.
Log in with your CIS credentials (UNID & CIS/UMail password). If you’ve not created your UBox account, do so first.

Note:  Solidworks is a MS Windows-only program and will NOT run on macOS or Linux distros.  One could, however, use a Windows virtual machine or emulator to run it (VirtualBox, VMWare Player/Fusion, Parallels, CrossOver, VirtaulPC, etc.)

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When logged in to a Linux lab machine or compute server, you may get the following error when opening Firefox:
“Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system.”

This may occur even though no evidence of Firefox running can be found.
To remedy this, open a Terminal and run the command: foxlock

It’s a script we wrote that will remove the necessary files from your .mozilla folder and allow you to open Firefox once again.

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Indeed – simply download and install the appropriate mobile device application and then execute the commands in the Matlab application (R2012a+), from a lab machine, or any machine with a licensed copy of Matlab.

You will need MATLAB Connector (available from MathWorks, http://www.mathworks.com/mobile/) on your machine/device. Upon running the install_connector command, you’ll be prompted to accept the license agreement, and then receive an error message you can safely ignore:
Error using install_connector>doinstall (line 100)

Error in install_connector (line 54)
doinstall

Run the ‘connector on’ command and continue as normal.

See Matlab’s site for full instructions and more information, including a link to download the mobile app.

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