29th May 2025

Download OpenFOAM-dev | Ubuntu

Ubuntu Versions

The openfoam-dev pack provides a packaged installation for Ubuntu of the current development line of OpenFOAM, known as OpenFOAM-dev, that contains the source code for the next major release of OpenFOAM. The pack is updated monthly to bring cutting-edge developments to users without them needing to compile source code. Updates can conveniently be installed as part of a standard update within the apt package management tool. The openfoam-dev pack works with the version of ParaView provided within the latest packaged version release of OpenFOAM — currently v12 (openfoam12). It installs the standard paraview package with Ubuntu versions 25.04, 24.04 and 22.04 and customised paraviewopenfoam510 package for older distributions of Ubuntu.

The openfoam-dev pack is available for the following versions of Ubuntu Linux 64bit only:

22.04 LTS, codename jammy
24.04 LTS, codename noble
25.04, codename plucky

The openfoam-dev pack was previously available for the following versions, but is no longer updated:

14.04 LTS, codename trusty until April 2019.
16.04 LTS, codename xenial, until June 2021.
16.10, codename yakkety, until April 2017.
17.04, codename zesty, retired at early end of life following the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities.
17.10, codename artful, until August 2018.
18.04 LTS, codename bionic, until December 2022.
18.10, codename cosmic, until July 2019.
19.04, codename disco, until April 2020.
19.10, codename eoan, until September 2020.
20.04 LTS, codename focal, until May 2025.
20.10, codename groovy, until June 2021.
21.04, codename hirsute, until May 2022.
21.10, codename impish, until May 2022.
22.10, codename kinetic, until July 2023.
23.04, codename lunar, until May 2023.

Installation

OpenFOAM-dev can be simply installed using the apt package management tool. The user will need to provide superuser password authentication when executing the following commands with sudo

If not already present, add (a) the public key (gpg.key) for the repository to enable package signatures to be verified and (b) the main repository at dl.openfoam.org. The key and main repository will be present if the user has already installed another pack, e.g. openfoam12.
```
sudo sh -c "wget -O - https://dl.openfoam.org/gpg.key > /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/openfoam.asc"
sudo add-apt-repository http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu
```
**Note: This only needs to be done once for a given system
Copy and paste the following in a terminal prompt (Applications → Accessories → Terminal) to add dl.openfoam.org dev to the list of software repositories for apt to search.
```
sudo add-apt-repository "http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu dev"
```
**Note: This only needs to be done once for a given system
Update the apt package list to account for the new download repository location
```
sudo apt update
```
Install OpenFOAM-dev which also installs paraview as a dependency if it is not already installed.
```
sudo apt -y install openfoam-dev
```

OpenFOAM-dev is now installed in the /opt directory.

Upgrading OpenFOAM-dev

Every week, OpenFOAM-dev is recompiled into a new openfoam-dev pack within the dev repository. The package will be upgraded automatically whenever repository package files are updated and the software is upgraded, e.g. by typing

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Users can also specifically upgrade openfoam-dev only by the following option:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --only-upgrade openfoam-dev

User Configuration

In order to use the installed OpenFOAM package, complete the following

Open the .bashrc file in the user’s home directory in an editor, e.g. by typing in a terminal window (note the dot)
```
gedit ~/.bashrc
```
At the bottom of that file, add the following line (see Note 1 below) and save the file
```
source /opt/openfoam-dev/etc/bashrc
```
Open a new terminal window (see Note 2 below) and test that the foamRun application, from the OpenFOAM package, is working by typing
```
foamRun -help
```
A “Usage” message should appear. Your installation and user configuration is complete.

Note 1: If a similar line has already been added to the user’s .bashrc file, e.g. for a previous version of OpenFOAM, then the line should be deleted or, alternatively, commented out by inserting a # at the beginning of the line.
Note 2: If a user wishes to execute foamRun in the same terminal window, they must first register the change to the .bashrc file by typing at the terminal prompt (note the dots): source $HOME/.bashrc

Getting Started

Create a project directory within the $HOME/OpenFOAM directory named <USER>-dev (e.g. chris-dev for user chris) and create a directory named run within it, e.g. by typing:

mkdir -p $FOAM_RUN

Copy across the backward facing step example and generate the mesh with blockMesh. Run the case with foamRun, using the incompressibleFluid modular solver with steady-state settings, equivalent to the simpleFoam application of old.

cd $FOAM_RUN
cp -r $FOAM_TUTORIALS/incompressibleFluid/pitzDailySteady .
cd pitzDailySteady
blockMesh
foamRun
paraFoam

Refer to the OpenFOAM User Guide to get started.

Reporting Bugs in OpenFOAM

We appreciate that bugs in OpenFOAM are reported so we can fix them. Please refer to the OpenFOAM Issue Tracking to report bugs.