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Pre-requirements for virtualization developer- Linux

With Linux, Singularity seems to work perfectly well.

Given the characteristics of the 2 proposed technologies (singularity container or virtual machine) it is clear that it is better to use a container for performance reasons.

In the following we propose exclusively for Linux the use of a Singularity container.

Install Singularity

Install singularity as for user installation

After installing singularity in your station

Reminder: Two software must be installed: Python (version >= 3.7) and Singularity (version > 3.6).

Install Read only_container

Open a shell, then:

mkdir -p $HOME/casa_distro/brainvisa-opensource-master # create an installation directory

Download the latest BrainVISA developer image (casa-dev) found in brainvisa site into $HOME/casa_distro (ex. $HOME/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.4.4.sif).

In the opened shell, execute the container image:

singularity run -c -B $HOME/casa_distro/brainvisa-opensource-master:/casa/setup $HOME/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.4.4.sif branch=master distro=opensource # Run Singularity using the downloaded image
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/casa_distro/brainvisa-opensource-master/bin:$PATH"' >> $HOME/.bashrc # set the bin/ directory of the installation directory in the PATH environment variable

Optionally, you can launch the graphical configuration interface, e.g. to define mounting points, etc:

bv

Then open an interactive shell in the container:

bv bash

And build from within the terminal (it may take some time ):

bv_maker

And continue with the Installation part

Create a container within a writable directory

Only if you need to add libraries with apt in your container.

  • sudo singularity build --sandbox $HOME/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.3-6_wr $HOME/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.3-6.sif # to make an editable image (casa-dev-5.3-6_wr)

  • sudo singularity run --writable $HOME/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.3-6_wr bash # to modify the image

It is now possible to modify the image. For example let’s update all packages and install GUI emacs:

  • Singularity> apt update # Singularity> is the prompt

  • Singularity> apt upgrade

  • Singularity> apt remove –autoremove emacs emacs-common # remove the old emacs package, if any, to avoid conflicts with the new package

  • Singularity> apt-get install -y software-properties-common # provide some useful scripts for adding and removing PPAs

  • Singularity> add-apt-repository ppa:kelleyk/emacs

  • Singularity> apt update

  • Singularity> apt install emacs28

  • “Edit the $HOME/casa_distro/brainvisa-opensource-master/conf/casa_distro.json file and change the value of the image key (ex. “image”: “/home/econdami/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.3-6_wr” in place of “image”: “/home/econdami/casa_distro/casa-dev-5.3-6.sif”)”

  • “Then using bv or bv bash will use the casa-dev-5.3-6_wr image”