I would like to ask if it is possible to use Fluka/Flair installed in Ubuntu by remote access from a computer/notebook working in Windows. Our IT first suggested program X2Go but later they found that it is not suitable for it. Does anybody have any experience with this or any suggestion how to realize such a connection?
one solution would be to install WSL (see more) on the Windows machine and connect to the PC running Ubuntu using ssh with the -X option. Then you will be able to run Flair remotely. Since FLUKA doesn’t need a graphical connection, a simple ssh connection is enough to run simulations from the command line.
Installing WSL will also allow you to install and run FLUKA/Flair locally. You can find the instructions here.
Dear David,
thank you for this suggestion. The connection with PC running Ubuntu with ssh really works. But there is only the possibility of running Fluka from a command line. So the data will have to be transfered.
The other topic is that after installing WSL on WIN machine, we could not successfuly run the script for instalation FLUKA/Flair locally (sudo ./setup.wsl.sh). The answer is like : Couldn’t install necessary packages. Try again later. It goes only through first lines (adding repositories, Firefox, Flair, upating package list) and stop when the instalation has to start.
you should be able to launch Flair installed on the remote computer as well if you are using the ssh -X command to connect. However, it may be not very usable depending on the connection.
To figure out the installation issue, could you upload the setup_wsl.out file to see what is causing the error?
I only see errors related to the network connection. It seems your WSL cannot connect to the internet. This can be caused by many things, like firewalls installed on the computer etc.
it was firewall, the IT did the instalation Fluka/Flair in WSL, open the gate through that firewall, but seems to me that flair does not work well. When I read file done in the version in Ubuntu it get stuck and on the terminal is some error.
They thought that might be possible to make a connection through win-win, remote desktop connection.
In fact what you sugested ssh -x works but does not transport the image, I can work on Ubuntu version, but do not see what is on the monitor.
The error seems to be not related to the remote connection. Does it happen, when you open a specific file, or just by starting Flair itself?
For remote access you may want to look into SSHFS as well. This program will allow to access the remote Linux computers harddrives, so you can use the locally installed Flair to modify the files. But for running the simulation on the remote computer still has to done on the command line.
that error happen with respect to the specific file, that is complicated, there is a rotation of geometry in it. (In fact I have also questions with respect to this file, it was my last project that I did.)
When the IT instaled flair he used VcXsrv instead of Xming that is in an instalation protocol, maybe that is not correct there. I have another version of fluka in win with Xming (notebook belonging to the institute) and there it works.
SshFS may not be compatible with version one of WSL, and that’s why you are getting the error. You could try to upgrade it to version 2 (see: Install WSL | Microsoft Learn), but I don’t know if that would be any better.
The correct package name for Ubuntu should be x11-utils. But if you can run Flair locally, it is not necessary to install it.