Install apptainer and download salome_meca 2025 for Ubuntu 26.04

This video shows how to easily install Apptainer, the successor of Singularity, and then proceed by downloading on https://open-simulation-center.org the .sif release of Salome_Meca 2025 on Ubuntu 26.04. After detailing how to configure your terminal to automatically run it, you'll be able to run and use freely Salome_Meca, AsterStudy and code_aster.

On Ubuntu 26.04, make sure to install Apptainer along with the required FUSE dependencies:

sudo apt install apptainer squashfuse fuse2fs gocryptfs

In particular, squashfuse is required to properly mount the SIF image.

Before first use, the Salome-Meca launcher must be generated once from the SIF image:

apptainer run --app install ~/containers/salome_meca-lgpl-2025.1.0-1-20251026-scibian-12.sif

This creates a launcher with the same name as the .sif file, but without the .sif extension. From then on, Salome_Meca must be started using this generated launcher — not directly with apptainer run on the SIF image. Running the SIF directly may appear to start Salome_Meca correctly, but Code_Aster will not work properly in that configuration.

Add the following function to your .bashrc to handle both the one-time installation and subsequent launches:

function salomemeca2025() {
    local smeca_launcher=""$HOME/containers/salome_meca-lgpl-2025.1.0-1-20251026-scibian-12""

    if [ ! -x ""$smeca_launcher"" ]; then
        echo ""Installing SALOME-MECA 2025...""

        if ! apptainer run --app install ""${smeca_launcher}.sif""; then
            echo ""SALOME-MECA installation failed.""
            return 1
        fi
    fi

    exec ""$smeca_launcher""
}

Once set up, simply type salomemeca2025 in your terminal to launch Salome_Meca.