Build OmegaLib on CentOS 6

[Henan Zhao]

Hi, 

I have two operating systems on my computer: CentOS 6 and Windows 7. I hope that I can install OemgaLib on CentOS 6 because all my other programs were built on that.

Did anyone install OmegaLib successfully on CentOS 6? 

It says OmegaLib was tested successfully on 64-bit SUSE and 32-bit Ubuntu on the Wiki website, and I am just curious if anyone has built it successfully in other linux systems so far :-). 

It will be extremely helpful for me if anyone who used the same OS before is able to provide any suggestion. :-)

Any suggestion and comments are welcomed. 

Thanks a lot. :-)

[Alessandro Febretti]

Hi Henan,

we use CentOS 6 for a 3D display wall at Northwestern, so you should be good!

Is this for a single-computer display or for a cluster-driven display?

[Henan Zhao]

Hi Alessandro,

Thanks!
That is great!

We have a cluster-driven display with two nodes. The first four columns of displays are in the render node whilst the other two are in the application node (that one is also connected to two monitors we are working on.)

Can I ask if there is any documents about the installation on CentOS 6? Could you please share some information, such as some modification in the configuration and building process, please?

Some default libraries on CentOS 6 seem like sort of old. For example, if I used the default version of python 2.6, there are some errors, such as structmember.h is missing. So I installed python 2.7 manually. Also would you mind that I ask a question on the compiler? The compiler on my CentOS 6.8 is gcc 4.4.7. Is it necessary to upgrade the compiler?

Sorry for so many questions.

[Henan Zhao]

Can I ask one more question here?

How can I run the forum on two nodes? Is it necessary to install the omegalib on the two nodes? Or there is a way to share the program and connect the two nodes?

Thanks a lot!

[Alessandro Febretti]

you need to install omegalib on both nodes.

what we typically do is installing in on a shared directory on the master node. so if omegalib is in, say

[master]/home/myself/omegalib

I can ssh on node slave1, and see omegalib in the same directory

[master] ssh slave1

[slave1] cd /home/myself/omegalib

You also need to setup passwordless ssh, so you can ssh from the master node into the slave without having to enter a password. There are lots of examples

on how to do this online (basically you need to create a rsa key pair and put in in the right place on the master & slave nodes)

Your configuration file will have two node sections, one controlling four columns of displays, the other one two. How many displays do you have per column? are those displays run separately or do they share a single desktop (xinerama)?

examples of configuration files are here: https://github.com/uic-evl/omegalib/blob/master/system/

check test multinode.

Also take a look at our display wall config: https://github.com/omega-hub/cami/blob/master/wall.cfg

[Henan Zhao]

Hi Alessandro,

Thanks for your kind reply!

I think I need to install omegalib on one shared directory or on both nodes, and the former solutions seem more convenient to me because our slave node cannot be connected to the public internet. 

We have 4 displays per column and based on my understanding they share a single desktop (I think I should double check that. Sorry that I just started to work on that.)

The information you provided is extremely useful for us. Thank you again!

[Alessandro Febretti]

to clarify - you don't need the nodes to be connected to the public internet. You just need to have them see each other. When I mentioned the shader folder I only meant for it to be shared between the two nodes.

[Alessandro Febretti]

unrelated:

would you mind participating in this very short survey? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rAURJkwccd39A4ud738cTgCsdZjbmdfCDhGLvkq5D3E/edit

it is going to help us plan improvements for the project and possibly look for funding. it's ok to participate even if you used omegalib for a very short time (or not at all!)

thanks!

[Alessandro Febretti]

sorry wrong link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXdWJC_-SP75yMg4P0_z_2FLNxrs53Ne5521xQAgxkbm9ihw/viewform

[Henan Zhao]

Hi Alessandro,

Thanks!

I just submit the survey. The omegalib make our research much more convenient. :-)