Red Hat vs Ububtu

[Thisara Welhena]

Hi,
I would like to know whether there is any difference between Red Hat and Ubuntu, when it comes to compiling the GETM.

Which one has less trouble ?

I am a new user for GETM and would like to hear from experts.

Thanks
Thisara

[Karsten Bolding]

Morning

There is quite a lot of confusion regarding compiling GETM/GOTM on
Linux - most of it is not really related to the GETM/GETM source code
itself.

Asume GETM and GOTM are installed in default directories:

~/GOTM/gotm-git
~/GETM/getm-git

then the only GETM/GOTM specific setting is the environment variable
FORTRAN_COMPILER. This setting is used for various things - naming the
fortran compiler executable, specific compiler settings
(.../compilers/compiler.$FORTRAN_COMPILER), naming of the getm
executable.

Now comes the trouble - NetCDF. There are at least two issues to
resolve:

1) version of NetCDF

2) Fortran compiler support in NetCDF library.

It is important to stress that NONE of these points are related
specifically to GETM/GOTM. In all cases where a Fortran program was to
be compiled with support for NetCDF the same issues will arise.
Compiling GETM/GOTM successfully a prerequisite is that the NetCDF issue
is sorted out.

add 1) NetCDF comes in 2 versions - NetCDF3 and NetCDF4. Using NetCDF3
standard methods for specifying include and library paths are used. If
NetCDF is installed in directories searched by the linker no further
action is needed. This will be Linux distribution depended - a sysadm
can also have made modifications to common login files to achive this.
If NetCDF is not installed in a standard search library the standard
method is used by using -I and -L linker switches . The arguments to -I
and -L are set by using the environment variables NETCDFINC and
NETCDFLIBDIR to point to the installation directory. Furthermore,
depending on the way NetCDF was compiled it might be necessary to set
NETCDFLIBNAME to "-lnetcdff -lnetcdf" - note the extra f.
Using NetCDF version 4 a utility script has been added. Unfortunately the
script has changed name from version 4.1 to the present stable version
4.2. GETM and GOTM uses the most recent name - nf-config. If nf-config
is in the PATH nothing further has to be done. If ver. 4.1 is used
change the reference to nf-config to nc-config in .../src/Rules.make -
or make a link from nc-config to nf-config.

add 2) Unfortunately Fortran modules are not standardised. This means
that different versions of the NetCDF library must be installed for each
Fortran compiler to be used. The specifications to do this must be
found in the NetCDF documentation and is beyond the GETM/GOTM
installation instructions.
Note that the path to 'nf-config' MUST vary for different fortran
compilers.

Descriptions are given here:
http://getm.eu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=33

Returning to your question - there should be no difference between
installing and running GETM on any Linux distribution. The main issue is
to get NetCDF to work with a given Fortran compiler - but again that is
not GETM specific.

Karsten

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http://www.getm.eu