nTop Automate for Linux - Update

Objective

nTop Automate, formerly known as Command Line Interface or nTop CL, is a headless version of nTop. This allows command-line programming as an alternative to the desktop GUI experience. Customers use nTop Automate to run multiple nTop workflows without requiring any manual intervention. Some of the typical use cases are applications requiring mass customizations and the design of experiments.

What is happening? 

nTop Automate for Linux has reached general availability. Authorized users can access the install file from their user dashboard at https://app.ntop.com/.

What is different in nTop Automate for Linux?

nTop Automate for Linux and nTop Automate for Windows is one product. However, a separate install file for the Linux version is available on the User's Dashboard.

 

Frequently Answered Questions

1. What are the recommendations for Installation?

  1. Find the download file on your user dashboard

  2. Download 'nTop Automate for Linux'
  3. On a Red Hat 8 machine, install the following dependencies:

    sudo yum install libglvnd-glx libxkbcommon-x11 mpfr
  4. Extract the tar ball into the destination path
    tar -xzvf nTop-4.2.tar.gz
    sudo cp -r nTop-4.2 /opt/
  5. Set environment variables for calling ntopcl
    export PATH="/opt/nTop-4.2:$PATH"
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/nTop-4.2:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/nTop-4.2/interop/dependencies/code/bin:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

    Note: The compressed package is portable and doesn’t strictly need to be installed under /opt. 

    If running ntop from a location other than the suggested ‘/opt’, please remember that the new PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH variables above must be updated accordingly in the previous export commands.

  6. Call ntopcl from anywhere in the terminal.

2. Does the GUI work with Linux?

The graphical user interface is not supported in the current version. It may be considered for a future release. 

3. Does it include all the same features as the Windows build?

It includes many of the same features as the Windows build. However, please note that there may be some differences in some of the features or results compared to the Windows version.

4. Why is nTop launching a Linux version?

Many of our customers interested in nTop Automate have access to High-Performance computing that runs on the Linux platform due to cost and performance advantages. nTop is offering the Linux version to provide these customers the option to run nTop Automate on their preferred platform. 

5. How do I use nTop Automate for Linux?

You must prepare a workflow for nTop Automate using nTop UI in Windows (see this support article). 

Then transfer the workflow to a Linux environment and invoke nTop Automate’s execution. This can be from a command line terminal or any programmatic environment.

nTop Automate in Linux is a native Linux application, so paths to all input files must follow traditional Linux filesystem conventions. E.g., a path is written like folder\mymesh.stl won’t work since it follows Windows-only conventions. Paths like folder/mymesh.stl work in both Windows and Linux and can be safely used in a portable fashion.

6. What are the supported Linux operating systems?

It is currently supported for Red Hat Enterprise v8 (RHELv8).

As of June 2024, we have transitioned our Linux support to RHEL 8 moving forward to ensure ongoing security and stability, as RHEL 7 has reached the End of Maintenance (please see the announcement here) and will no longer receive critical security updates and bug fixes.

If your systems are currently on RHEL 7, you are recommended to stay on our final RHEL 7 compatible version (nTop 4.26.4) until migrating your systems to RHEL 8, and update to nTop 5 or later versions only after the migration is complete.

7. Are other Linux distros supported?

While other Linux distributions (CentOS, Rocky, Wine etc.) may function with nTop, we don't officially support them and can't provide any technical support for troubleshooting any potential issues.

8. How will users access it?

The install file will be available on your user dashboard.

9. How will users know they have been granted access to nTop Automate for Linux?

You will see the download link for 'nTop Automate for Linux' on your user dashboard.

10. Can it run using WSL?

It is not officially supported.

11. If I have a Windows license, do I need an additional license to run Linux?

No. Currently, a Windows license also grants you access to the Linux version.

12. What is the current limit of license requests per minute?

It is currently limited to one user, one device (not on multiple machines), with up to 100 requests per minute.

13. What are the supported features in this release?

Here is a list of supported features:

  • CAD Interoperability
  • Implicit Modelling
  • Latticing
  • FE Meshing
  • Topology Optimization
  • Surface Meshing
  • Triangular Meshing
  • Boundary Selection Blocks
  • Static Analysis
  • Red Hat Enterprise 8

14. What are some of the known issues?

Some of the behaviors that might be different than 'nTop Automate for Windows' include, but are not limited to, the following:

    1. The resulting mesh from Volume Meshing may be different.

    2. Lattices produced by the Cell Map from CAD Face and Cell Map between CAD Faces blocks may have a different number of edges, beams, line segments, and vertices when the non-linear option is selected.

    3. After running the Trim Lattice block, the index order of the lattice's property lists, including beams, line segments, and vertices, will be different. This difference will also be observed when exporting the lattice as a .3MF file.

    4. The principal frame property of the Mass Properties from Body block is flipped for some primitives.

    5. Spatial Interoperability and loading of CAD file formats; SolidWorks and CATIA import.

    6. The output of the Stochastic lattice blocks may have slight geometric deviations (within 1e-3 mm).

    7. Random numbers generated in blocks will be different.

    8. The output for the Voronoi and Branched lattice would be different.

Keywords:

 ntop automate linux ntopcl 
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