Open MPI is a message passing interface that combines the merger of three major MPI implementations (FT-MPI, LA-MPI, and LAM/MPI) to create a complete MPI-2 implementation. MPI is a language-independent communications protocol used to program parallel computers.

The following was written in my capacity as President of Linux Users of Victoria for a community group newsletter with minimal familiarity with computer systems.

Mono is used to develop an Ecma standard compliant, .NET-compatible set of tools, including a C# compiler and a Common Language Runtime.

To install change to the appropriate directory. Download from Novell. Extract in the sensible place. Change to the extracted directory, check then run the sample config and run make, make install and make check. After this create a module for the environment variables and logout.


cd /usr/local/src/MONO/
wget http://ftp.novell.com/pub/mono/sources/mono/mono-2.8.tar.bz2
tar xvf mono-2.8.tar.bz2
../config
make
make install
make check

BigDFT is a Density Functional Theory (DFT) parallel electronic structure code using a wavelet basis set. Wavelets form a real space basis set distributed on an adaptive mesh. Surfaces and isolated systems can be simulated with the proper boundary conditions and GTH or HGH pseudopotentials are used to remove the core electrons.

The taxonomy module is a very useful utility for Drupal sites, especially for those of any size. Primarily summarised from the Drupal Handbook on the subject, the following gives a basic summary of the subject.

Molden displays molecular density from the ab initio packages GAMESS and GAUSSIAN and others. Molden reads all the required information from the GAMESS / GAUSSIAN outputfile. Molden is capable of displaying molecular orbitals, electron density and molecular minus atomic density.

NCAR is the (US) National Centre for Atmospheric Research, NCARG is a graphics library, maps database and applications for the same, and NCAR Command Language (NCL) is interpreted language for the above. Installing the software from source is not recommended: "We highly recommend that you use a precompiled NCL binary rather than attempting a build from source code....

The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a compiler system for C (gcc), C++ (g++), Java (gcj), Ada (GNAT), Objective-C (gobjc), Objective-C++ (gobjc++), and Fortran (gfortran). Circumstances will arise when you will want to use a particular version of GCC rather than the system version.

Set the environment variables manually for GMP, MPFR and MPC. Or use modules.


module load gmp/4.3.1
module load mpfr
module load mpc


When developing a website, and in particular an intranet, for an organisation there is often a debate on what should be on the frontpage.

Different departments and different individuals all seem to have "strong opinions" on the matter.

LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator) is used to model atoms or as a parallel particle simulator at the atomic, meso, or continuum scale. It has potentials for soft materials (biomolecules, polymers) and solid-state materials (metals, semiconductors) and coarse-grained or mesoscopic systems. You may remember a difficult install from the past.