OpenFOAM v5.0 | Patch Releases
Today we released patched versions of the openfoam5
pack for the following versions of Ubuntu Linux, 64 bit:
- 14.04 LTS, codename
trusty
- 16.04 LTS, codename
xenial
- 17.04, codename
zesty
- 17.10, codename
artful
- 18.04 LTS, codename
bionic
(from 1 Jun 2018)
See the Download v5.0 | Ubuntu page for installation and upgrade instructions.
The packs can be installed or upgraded on Windows 10 and have been used to update the installations for other Linux and macOS platforms that use Docker to provide a self-contained environment, see Download v5.0 | Linux and Download v5.0 | macOS.
Source of the Patched Packs
The OpenFOAM Foundation maintains two public repositories of source code of OpenFOAM:
- The development line of OpenFOAM (
OpenFOAM-dev
), packaged weekly asopenfoam-dev
, which includes major code changes that can break backward compatibility. - The “dot-x” source repository for the latest major version release — currently
OpenFOAM-5.x
— that incorporates latest code fixes without breaking backward compatibility.
OpenFOAM-5.x
provides the source code for the patched openfoam5
packs. The packs use the packaging date as the minor version number, allowing users to refer to the repository for included code fixes. The installed version can be checked by typing:
apt-cache policy openfoam5
This produces the following output for the patched version released today
openfoam5: Installed: 20171030 Candidate: 20171030 Version table: *** 20171030 500 500 http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 0-1 500 500 http://dl.openfoam.org/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
The user can then refer to the repository commit log at 30 Oct 2017 corresponding to the package date 20171030
.
Replacing the “dot-1” Release
In past versions of OpenFOAM, we released a “dot-1” version, e.g. OpenFOAM-5.1
, a few months after the release of the major version, i.e. 5.0. The rationale was that the dot-1 version contained code fixes to a large number of issues reported following a new version release. The timing of the dot-1 version release was based on issue reports falling to the background level.
Today the development line is maintained publicly to “always-releasable” quality. Issues are continuously reported and resolved, such that we no longer see a sharp rise in reported issues following release of a major version. The dot-1 version is therefore an anachronism, not relevant to our development of OpenFOAM today. Instead, we plan to release updated openfoam5
packs, compiled from the latest OpenFOAM-5.x
sources, approximately once per month.