Beginning LAMMPS in macOS via conda; from a command window how to find, examine and start running examples?

LAMMPS LAMMPS Beginners
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I’ve basic competency in python, physics, surface science and numerical simulation but for some reason I am permanently lost when it comes to command windows and operating systems. I’ve downloaded and installed LAMMPS on macOS 10.15 via conda using instructions at 2.4. Download an executable for Linux or Mac via Conda — LAMMPS documentation and installed the openkim-models and I’m at the “okay, now what?” stage.

I understand that there should be many examples – somewhere – and by running them and looking at their scripts I should be able to bootstrap myself up to making a graphene flake find an equilibrium configuration on a metal fcc(111) surface, but right now I just have a command window looking at me silently asking “okay, what next?”

How do I find, run, and then examine examples?

For a Windows installation this video LAMMPS Tutorial #1: Getting Started for Absolute Beginners - YouTube shows an examples folder, but so far the only LAMMPS folders I can find by poking around are in /Users/Davido/anaconda3/pkgs/lammps-2021.09.29-py310h121345e_openmpi_3 and I’m not seeing many “examples” there, except a few as shown in the following screenshot:

Screen Shot 2022-07-14 at 12.45.52 PM
Screen Shot 2022-07-14 at 12.45.52 PM1170×1142 180 KB

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That is one of the downsides of installing packed, precompiled software: extra data is usually packaged separately or not at all.

But if you download the source archive and unpack it, you will get the examples, too.

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@akohlmey Thanks, I’m just starting to figure this out; the alternative is to download “Latest stable release. 170 MB tarball with source and docs, GPLv2 license” and build it on my computer. I’ve never done that before. I may try it today.

Yes I have downloaded and unarchived lammps-stabel.tar.gz and found a big examples folder there. In principle I can now try running those from my command window. I just need to look for the command to do so, probably here 4.1. Basics of running LAMMPS — LAMMPS documentation

Yes!

cd 'Users/davido/Downloads/lammps-23Jun2022/examples/deposit

lmp_serial -in in.deposit.molecule.rigid-small

runs and generates output I’ve found examples and run one. Success!

I will review and get help on building it from someone locally. Thank you.

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