Installation on Ubuntu/Windows
PROCESS is developed using Ubuntu 22 and tested using Ubuntu 20. We cannot guarantee any other operating system will be able to compile PROCESS or reproduce results. PROCESS is known to build on some versions of MacOS, however, PROCESS is not supported or tested on MacOS.
Windows User
Windows users should run PROCESS using WSL.
To install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) follow the 'Manual Installation Steps' here. Choose WSL 2 and Ubuntu 20 (if installing from the Microsoft store then Ubuntu 20 is installed by default).
The following command is used to install WSL (you need admin privileges to perform this command):
wsl --install
If the above procedure fails to work, there is a Microsoft help page.
Installing PROCESS
GFortran version 9 or above is needed for successful installation and execution of PROCESS. Versions below GFortran-9 will be rejected by CMake by default since, while PROCESS might compile successfully with lower GFortran versions, other aspects of PROCESS (tests, coverage, etc.) will fail.
Open the terminal and install cmake, gfortran, pip, etc.:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y cmake gfortran python3-pip poppler-utils python3-venv
CMake
CMake can also be installed into your (virtual) Python environment by running pip install cmake.
Next, the code will need to be downloaded so you can work with it. The PROCESS code is stored in a GitHub repository and as such needs to be 'cloned' - i.e bought to your VSCode window from GitHub.
Clone the PROCESS repository from GitHub, and navigate into the resulting directory:
git clone https://github.com/ukaea/PROCESS
cd PROCESS
If you would like to install PROCESS using a package manager such as conda, follow the instructions for HPC installation. Otherwise, create and activate a virtual environment, as shown below. Note that you must use Python 3.10 or 3.11:
python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate
Virtual environment
While not mandatory, it is highly recommended users create a Python virtual environment in order to use the PROCESS Python package, as this ensures that installations of required package versions don't affect other packages that require different versions in your environment.
In the installation instructions above, a virtual environment is mentioned for using to work on PROCESS. It might not be so clear as to why a virtual environment is used however.
Imagine a scenario where you are working on multiple projects and each project uses different versions of different dependencies. This can be confusing and cause issues down the line. A virtual environment is an aid that will allow maintenance of dependencies within each project. Essentially, having a virtual environment for each project you will work on will store the dependencies of those specific projects within itself, preventing crossover. This is the reason we recommend installing one so your other projects don't influence the dependencies of PROCESS and visa versa.
Now compile the Fortran and create the Python interface. This is done using cmake to configure the
build and then make to build it. Finally start the build process:
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
The build step may take some time when run for the first time (~3 mins) as the Fortran code is
compiled and then wrapped using f2py to create the Python libraries. Once this is completed
the PROCESS Python package is then automatically installed using pip and should be ready to use
on Linux. If the installation was successful the process command should be available on the command line.
To rebuild, for example after making a change to the Fortran source, run cmake --build build again.
Python-only changes are reflected immediately, as the cmake build script performs a development (editable) installation by default.
Examples
If you are new to PROCESS, you may want to run some of the examples in the examples/ directory. These will introduce you to the basic functionality of reactor design with PROCESS. The examples require additional dependencies that can be installed using:
pip install '.[examples]'
PROCESS Development
If you plan on developing code for PROCESS, please see the pre-commit documentation for
installing this tool required by developers: development/pre-commit.
Users of multiple branches
For users of PROCESS that run on multiple branches, it is recommended that each time you switch branches you fully rebuild PROCESS:
rm -r build
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
The PROCESS test suite provides through tests that can be used to confirm a successful installation; the tests can then be used to verify changes you make have not affected the wider codebase. The tests should be run from the PROCESS root directory. The tests require additional requirements installed by running:
pip install '.[examples, test]'
The test suite uses PyTest and can be fully run using:
pytest
which runs unit, integration, and regression tests.
A more in-depth discussion of testing can be found here.
If everything passes, this indicates a successful installation. If anything fails, this indicates that your environment produces different results to what is expected.
Installation troubleshooting
If you have previously modified your $PYTHONPATH environment variable to
include process/utilities, perhaps in your ~/.bashrc file, then please remove this modification.
Re-start your terminal for the changes to take effect, and check this is not on your $PYTHONPATH with:
echo $PYTHONPATH
This modification is not required to run PROCESS now, and it may result in Ford failing during the build process otherwise. ```
FORD installed to .local/bin
An error may be encountered here because ford is installed in .local/bin, which is not on
the PATH in some environments, so you will need to add .local/bin to the PATH if this error
occurs. You can do this using nano:
First use:
nano ~/.profile
Then use the arrow keys to navigate to the bottom of the nano editor and type:
export PATH=$PATH:/home/yourusername/.local/bin
where you use your own username in place of yourusername above. Then use Ctrl-X, then type Y, then press enter. Then either close and reopen the terminal, or type:
source ~/.profile
Finally, remove the old build folder and try again:
rm build -rf
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build
CMake version > 3.13.0
CMake needs to be at least version 3.13.0. This is so that the command cmake -S . -B build executes
correctly. Running this command on an earlier CMake version results in:
CMake Error: The source directory "/home/process/build" does not exist.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.
subsequently making the build directory and running the command again results in:
CMake Error: The source directory "/home/process/build" does not appear to contain CMakeLists.txt.
Specify --help for usage, or press the help button on the CMake GUI.
Errors at the end of the build along the lines of Python.h: No such file or directory #include "Python.h"
could occur because the developer version of Python cannot be found. This can be fixed by
installing the developer version:
sudo apt install libpython<python-version>-dev
E.g.
sudo apt install libpython3.10-dev