Linux Quickstart Guide

This quickstart guide is for installing AMS on a Linux desktop/laptop machine. For cluster installations please read the generic Installation manual

NOTE: The following steps should be taken under a normal user account. Do not use the root account or superuser!

Start with downloading AMS2021 for Linux from the main download page (click the orange Download button below the penguin), and save it in your Downloads folder. You do not need to open the file. If you have an AMD Zen processor (Ryzen/EPYC), then download the “Linux Intel MPI, optimized for AMD-Zen” binary instead.

Now open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T usually works, otherwise browse your application menus), and run the commands below to extract the download into your homefolder. Make sure to replace the ams2021.101.pc64_linux.intelmpi part to match the name of the file you downloaded (in case of a newer version, or if you downloaded a snapshot or development version). Try to use copy and paste (right-click with your mouse in the terminal screen to paste) to avoid mistyping the commands.

cd $HOME
tar -xf $HOME/Downloads/ams2021.101.pc64_linux.intelmpi.bin.tgz

Run the following command to source the amsbashrc.sh file, do not forget the dot and space at the beginning of the line! Also make sure to replace 2021.101 with the version you downloaded.

. $HOME/ams2021.101/amsbashrc.sh

Start up the GUI with this command:

amsjobs &

If this fails to launch a GUI window, then you can try to run our GUI in software mode:

export SCM_OPENGL_SOFTWARE=1
amsjobs &

If this still does not open a GUI, then use your mouse to select all the text in the terminal window, copy it (right-click and select copy), and send us an email at support@scm.com with the text. DO NOT PROCEED WITH THE NEXT STEP!

If the AMS GUI started without problems, go back to the terminal window and run the following command to create a desktop icon for AMS:

$AMSBIN/create_linux_icon.sh

Finally we can set up our terminal to automatically source the amsbashrc.sh file when starting. Add the source command to the .bashrc file with the following command in the terminal window:

echo '. $HOME/ams2021.101/amsbashrc.sh' >> $HOME/.bashrc

You can also open the .bashrc file in a text editor, and manually paste the part between the quotes on a new line at the end of the file.