Linux Install

Introduction

TUFLOW is installed on Linux using the .rpm and .deb installer packages, which can be downloaded here. There's also a tar.gz archive available from the same location, which can serve as a portable application, similar to the .zip archive available for Windows.

The installers have been tested on Rocky Linux 9 and Ubuntu 22.04, but should work on other modern Red Hat and Debian distributions.

Codemeter Configuration

To provide licenses to TUFLOW on Linux install and configure the CodeMeter User Runtime Package for Linux (.rpm or .deb options are available) https://www.wibu.com/support/user/user-software.html.

• If using a hardware based usb dongle (either network or local licenses) please follow the instructions within Installing Wibu Codemeter Linux.
• If using a software lock (either network or local licenses please follow the instructions within Wibu Software License Linux.

TUFLOW Versioning

TUFLOW uses a year.minor.patch versioning convention as follows.

• The year corresponds to the major version number e.g. 2026.0.0. Major releases are the only releases that will admit the possibility of breaking changes, which are changes in defaults or features that may change model results between versions. There is one major release per year

• Minor releases contain new features and bug fixes, but no breaking changes and increment the minor version number, e.g. 2026.1.0
• Patch releases are bug fixes only and increment the patch version number, e.g. 2026.0.1

RPM Install

• Download the .rpm for the specific TUFLOW build from https://www.tuflow.com/downloads/#tuflow
• Save the .rpm locally. A common location is the home folder for the current user ~/
• Run the preferred installation command. For example, if installing the TUFLOW 2026.0.0 release:

  sudo dnf install ~/tuflow-2026.0-2026.0.0-1.x86_x64.rpm
  

• This installs a version-specific copy of the TUFLOW binaries and libraries under /opt/tuflow/<version>/bin and /opt/tuflow/<version>/lib. A symbolic link to the executable is created in /usr/bin, allowing the required version to be run with a versioned shortcut, e.g. tuflow-2026.0-isp.
• There is also a launcher script in /opt/tuflow/tuflow-<version>/bin/tuflow-<version>-idp.sh for use cases where some environment variables needs to be set before execution. If you need to edit these, we recommend copying these into /usr/local/bin, as they will be overwritten if a patch release is installed.
• To uninstall run the preferred uninstaller command. For example:

  sudo dnf remove tuflow-2026.0
  

• To return a list of previously installed versions and review the correct uninstall version use dnf list installed, or dnf list installed 'tuflow*'

Note: Major and minor releases are installed with a new directory under /opt/tuflow. For example, TUFLOW 2026.0.0 is installed under /opt/tuflow/tuflow-2026.0. Patch releases overwrite the existing installation that shares the same major and minor release number. For example, TUFLOW 2026.0.1 will update 2026.0.0 if present.

DEB Install

The process for .deb is essentially the same as the .rpm steps 2-5. For steps 3 and 5, the install and uninstall command examples below are for Debian derivatives. For example (assuming TUFLOW 2026.0.0, modify for the specific version required):

To install:

 sudo apt install ./tuflow-2026.0_2026.0.0-1_amd64.deb

To uninstall:

 sudo apt remove tuflow-2026.0

If unsure about which versions you have previously installed you can return a list of all the installed versions via:

 apt list --installed | grep tuflow

Note: Major and minor releases are installed with a new directory under /opt/tuflow. For example, TUFLOW 2026.0.0 is installed under /opt/tuflow/tuflow-2026.0. Patch releases overwrite the existing installation that shares the same major and minor release number. For example, TUFLOW 2026.0.1 will update 2026.0.0 if present.

Notes for Running TUFLOW Under WSL

If you are running a Linux installation with Microsoft Windows under WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), things should run as expected. If you want to use NVIDIA hardware with CUDA support with TUFLOW under WSL, you need to add the correct folder to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, so that TUFLOW can find the correct CUDA shared libraries that work in WSL:

 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/wsl/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

In that folder there's a utility /usr/lib/wsl/lib/nvidia-smi which will indicate if the Linux installation can connect to the NVIDIA hardware otherwise managed by the Microsoft Windows driver.

Running a Model

For either Linux distribution TUFLOW can be run by calling tuflow-2026.0-isp (this example would the currently installed patch for version 2026.0 and single precision) and by passing it a configuration file name:

tuflow-2026.0-isp my_run.tcf

Model-specific commands such as the export OMP_NUM_THREADS environment variable can either be added via the command line, or in your own custom run script that calls the configuration file name, for example run_model.sh:

#!/bin/bash 
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=8 
tuflow-2026.0-idp my_run.tfc

Once saved the script will need to be configured to run as an executable as follows:

chmod +x run_model.sh

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