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# B. Frequently asked questions

    $Id: FAQ,v 1.11 2006/02/25 08:02:58 geuzaine Exp $

    This is the GetDP FAQ

    ********************************************************************

    Section 1: The basics

    * 1.1 What is GetDP?

    GetDP is a scientific software environment for the numerical solution
    of integro-differential equations, open to the coupling of physical
    problems (electromagnetic, thermal, mechanical, etc) as well as of
    numerical methods (finite element method, integral methods, etc). It
    can deal with such problems of various dimensions (1D, 2D, 2D
    axisymmetric or 3D) and time states (static, transient or
    harmonic). The main feature of GetDP is the closeness between the
    organization of data defining discrete problems (written by the user
    in ASCII data files) and the symbolic mathematical expressions of
    these problems.

    * 1.2 What are the terms and conditions of use?

    GetDP is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
    License. See the file doc/LICENSE for more information, or go to the
    GNU foundation's web site at http://www.gnu.org.

    * 1.3 What does 'GetDP' mean?

    It's an acronym for a "General environment for the treatment of
    Discrete Problems".

    * 1.4 Where can I find more information?

    <http://www.geuz.org/getdp/> is the primary site to obtain information
    about GetDP. You will find a short presentation, a complete reference
    guide as well as a searchable archive of the GetDP mailing list
    (<getdp@geuz.org>) on this site.

    ********************************************************************

    Section 2: Installation

    * 2.1 Which OSes does GetDP run on?

    GetDP is known to run on Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP, Linux, Mac OS X,
    Compaq Tru64 Unix (aka OSF1, aka Digital Unix), Sun OS, IBM AIX, SGI
    IRIX, FreeBSD and HP-UX. It should compile on any Unix-like operating
    system, provided that you have access to a recent C and Fortran 77
    compiler.

    * 2.2 What do I need to compile GetDP from the sources?

    You need a C and a Fortran 77 compiler (e.g. the GNU compilers gcc and
    g77) as well as the GSL (version 1.2 or higher; freely available from
    http://sources.redhat.com/gsl/).

    * 2.3 How to I compile GetDP?

    Just type

    ./configure; make; make install

    If you change some configuration options (type ./configure --help to
    get the list of all available choices), don't forget to do 'make
    clean' before rebuilding GetDP.

    * 2.4 GetDP [from a binary distribution] complains about missing
    libraries.

    Try 'ldd getdp' (or 'otool -L getdp' on Mac OS X) to check if all the
    required shared libraries are installed on your system. If not,
    install them. If it still doesn't work, recompile GetDP from the
    sources.

    ********************************************************************

    Section 3: Usage

    * 3.1 How can I provide a mesh to GetDP?

    The only meshing format accepted by this version of GetDP is the 'msh'
    format created by Gmsh (<http://www.geuz.org/gmsh>). This format being
    very simple (see the reference GetDP manual for more details), it
    should be straightforward to write a converter from your mesh format
    to the 'msh' format.

    * 3.2 How can I visualize the results produced by GetDP?

    You can specify a format in all post-processing operations. Available
    formats include 'Table', 'TimeTable' and 'Gmsh'. 'Table' and
    'TimeTable' output lists of numbers easily readable by
    Excel/gnuplot/Caleida Graph/etc. 'Gmsh' outputs post-processing views
    directly loadable by Gmsh.

    * 3.3 How do I change the linear solver used by GetDP?

    Edit the 'solver.par' file in the current working directory. You can
    also remove the file: GetDP will give you the opportunity to create it
    dynamically next time you perform a linear system solving.

    If you don't like the default linear solvers (based on Yousef Saad's
    Sparskit 2.0), you can configure and compile GetDP to use PETSc
    (http://www.mcs.anl.gov/petsc) instead: run ./configure --help for
    more info.

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