Netgen-1.3 for Windows XP (and maybe others?)

Netgen-Cygwin compile and install:

Requirements: Windows, plenty of disk space. Nothing unusual. High bandwidth internet connection is definitely a plus.

Step 1: Install Cygwin and the Tcl and X11-based Tk Cygwin binary distribution

It is absolutely necessary that at least a base version of Cygwin be installed, as well as the precompiled distribution of X11-based Tcl/Tk, according to the instructions in the title link.

Step 2, Option 1: Netgen Quick Install

This is the easiest way to get Netgen running, but may be significantly out of date from the latest version, depending on when I last compiled Netgen on a Windows machine.
  1. Download (use your browser and download to the root directory of the Cygwin distribution, which by default is C:\cygwin:
    File Revision Size Date
    netgen-1.4.6v.tgz 1.4.6 (vista) (254KB) January 22, 2008
    netgen1_3_7.tgz 1.3.7 (243KB) September 19, 2006
    netgen_win.tgz 1.3.4 (243KB) October 18, 2005
  2. Bring up a Cygwin terminal on the Windows desktop.
  3. Type cd /
  4. This is where the file netgen1_3_7.tgz should be.
  5. Type tar xfz netgen1_3_7.tgz
  6. Run by typing netgen. This should be all you need to do! In case the executable can't be found, you may need to type the full path, which is /usr/local/bin/netgen.

Step 2, Option 2: Netgen Compile and Install from Source

Since I don't update the Cygwin distribution very often, it can get rather outdated compared to the latest source distribution of Netgen. However, if you follow the Cygwin and Tcl/Tk for X11 installation instructions, you should have everything you need to compile Netgen from source.
  1. I suggest creating a directory /usr/local/src with the command "mkdir /usr/local/src", then doing "cd /usr/local/src" before proceeding with the next item. However, the magic source may be downloaded into the default top directory without any problem.
  2. Use your web browser to download the latest Netgen source distribution. If default values are chosen during install, then the Cygwin top-level directory is rooted at "C:\cygwin", and the directory above is "C:\cygwin\usr\local\src" as viewed in the Windows environment.
  3. Download the latest .tgz file from the Netgen web page.
  4. Once the .tgz file is in the proper destination, you should be able to see the file from the Cygwin terminal prompt by typing the command "ls".
  5. At the Cygwin terminal prompt, type "tar xfz netgen-1.3.4.tgz" (of course, substitute the filename for the actual version and revision number of the Netgen source).
  6. Type "cd netgen-1.3.4" (likewise, substitute the correct name).
  7. Type "./configure".
  8. Follow up with "make". Hopefully this runs without errors (although there are a handful of warnings, these may be ignored).
  9. Final step is "make install".
  10. You can test by typing "netgen" at the Cygwin terminal prompt.
  11. Note that there is an executable of Netgen called "/usr/local/bin/netgenexec.exe", and may be launched from a batch file, and thereby launched directly from the Windows desktop. This is left as an exercise unless someone wants to send me a working batch file.

Last updated: January 22, 2008 at 3:54pm