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The latest version of MSC.Nastran that currently supports Linux is version 2024.2. The installation instructions are fairly straightforward: first, install the license server, then install the main program, and finally set up the license server. In practice, however, there are several common pitfalls that need to be taken into consideration.

1. Install the MSC License Server

Enter the folder where the program is located and run the license server installation file. By default, the graphical installation interface will launch, showing a message that Ubuntu is not supported. Here, the text-based installation interface is accessed using --mode console.

Ansa natively supports Linux¹, but commonly available installation packages online are all Windows-based. On Linux, Windows programs can be run using Wine emulation. Below, we attempt to run Ansa on a Linux platform using Wine.

1. Install Wine

The distribution used here is Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and Wine is installed via apt. It is recommended to install the vkd3d library to enhance graphics performance.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install wine wine64 libvkd3d-dev vkd3d-compiler 

Run winecfg to view the Wine settings. If Windows fonts are not installed, certain characters, such as Chinese, will appear as squares.

Recently, due to development needs, I needed to test and verify the application being developed on the macOS platform. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Mac, and my budget is tight. So I considered installing a macOS virtual machine on my workstation at work to solve the urgent problem.

I had previously tried installing it through VirtualBox, but it ended in failure. Later, I read that some experts had installed macOS via Docker¹², so I decided to give it a try.