How to use the application

Environment Modules (hereinafter referred to as “Modules”) is a system that manages the execution environment of an application.Use Modules to load the environment necessary to run the application, and then run the application.

Check the available applications (module avail)

You can see the list of available applications by logging in to sol and running module avail.

$ module avail

------------------------------- /etc/modulefiles -------------------------------
matlab/2021b(default)  OpenJDK/11.28            python/3.10.2(default)
matlab/2022a           OpenJDK/17.0.2(default)  texlive/2021(default)

Using the application (module load)

To use an application on sol, the following steps are required.

  1. Load the application execution environment.

  2. Launch the application.

You can load the application’s execution environment by executing module load <software name>/<version> from the command prompt. After loading the execution environment, you can use the application by executing the commands of each application.

The following example loads Python 3.10.2 and then executes it.

$ module load python/3.10.2
$ python3
Python 3.10.2

Check the loaded application execution environment (module list)

You can check the currently loaded applications by executing module list from the command prompt.

$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
1) matlab/2021b(default)     3) python/3.10.2(default)
2) OpenJDK/17.0.2(default)   4) texlive/2021(default)

Unload the application execution environment (module unload, module purge)

You can unload the loaded application runtime environment by running module unload <software name>/<version> from the command prompt. In the example below, Python 3.10.2 is unloaded, so the following python3 command executes the OS default 3.8.2 instead of version 3.10.2.

sol:~$ python3 --version
Python 3.10.2
sol:~$ module unload python/3.10.2
sol:~$ python3 --version
Python 3.8.10

You can run module purge from the command prompt to unload the entire loaded application execution environment.

$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
1) matlab/2021b(default)     3) python/3.10.2(default)
2) OpenJDK/17.0.2(default)   4) texlive/2021(default)
$ module purge
$ module list
No Modulefiles Currently Loaded.

Switch the application execution environment (module switch)

You can switch the application execution environment by executing module switch from the command prompt.This is used when you want to use different versions of an application.In the following example, we are switching from MATLAB 2017b to MATLAB 2017a.

$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
1) matlab/2021b
$ module switch matlab/2021b matlab/2022a
$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
1) matlab/2022a

Automatically load/unload software upon login

You can automatically load/unload the application execution environment at login by placing module commands in .bashrc or .tcshrc . The following example shows how to configure bash to load python at login.

$ vim ~/.bashrc (.bashrc ファイルを編集する)
module load python (この行を追記する)

After editing, log in to sol again, and you can operate from the state where python is loaded as shown below.

$ ssh <UECアカウント>@sol.edu.cc.uec.ac.jp
$ module list
Currently Loaded Modulefiles:
1) python/3.10.2

Japanese input

We use Mozc for Japanese input.

After starting emacs, you can switch between Japanese input using CTRL + `` (backslash).

For other GUI applications, you can use the Windows key + SPACE to switch between Japanese input.