The standard operating system on the cluster is Redhat linux. However, another operating system can be run on the cluster using virtual images. For example, It is possible to run windows OS and windows based application on Griffith HPC. The following HowTo will outline the steps involved. There are some limitations which will be mentioned at the end.

Connect to the Desktop of Griffith HPC Head Node

Use any one of the two methods strudel to connect to the desktop:Connecting to the Desktop of Griffith HPC Head Node

strudel - Connect to the HPC Facility using a Graphical Interface

...

Submit an interactive PBS job with -X option and Queue qweek_s.

e.g:

qsub -I -X X -q qweek_s -l l walltime=01100:00:00 -l select=1:ncpus=4:mem=12g:mpiprocs=4

There would be a wait time especially if enough resouces are not available. You will get a meesage like below when the job is successfull and would be taken to the compute time for the period of the walltime.

>>>>>>
qsub: job 4260247.pbsserver ready

########################### Execution Started #############################
JobId:4260247.pbsserver
UserName:s1234567
GroupName:1234567
ExecutionHost:n048
WorkingDir:/var/spool/PBS/mom_priv
###############################################################################


{noformat}

On the execution node, please type:

module load virtualbox/win7

Creating the Virtual Machine

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Create a new VM using the images in provided images by first copying the image to your local directory and pointing it during the creation of the VM.

e.g
cp /scratch/images/win7-hpc.vdi ~/VBimage

Please note that the session should be shutdown after use. Also note that your walltime determines the time you have available to run jobs. Please plan and request resources appropriately when you submit the job with qsub. For example, memory and walltime would be one of the considerations.