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FEniCS Installation Exercise ​

This short exercise helps you verify that your FEniCS installation is complete and working correctly — both in the terminal and inside Jupyter. It’s a basic test, but completing it confirms that your environment is ready for running actual simulations in later chapters.

Estimated time: 15–20 minutes What you’ll submit: A few screenshots showing your FEniCS installation and a successful solver run.

Step 1 — Check Installation in the Terminal ​

Open your terminal (Ubuntu in WSL or macOS Terminal) and run the following commands one by one:

bash
python3 -c "import dolfin; print('FEniCS version:', dolfin.__version__)"
python3 -c "import meshio; print('meshio version:', meshio.__version__)"
jupyter notebook --version

You should see version numbers for FEniCS, meshio, and Jupyter printed without any errors.

Deliverable 1: Screenshot of your terminal showing all three version lines.

Step 2 — Launch Jupyter Notebook and Verify Inside ​

Next, open Jupyter Notebook from the same terminal:

bash
jupyter notebook --ip=0.0.0.0 --port=8888 --no-browser

Copy the URL displayed in the terminal and open it in your browser. Then, create a new Python 3 notebook and run this code block:

python
import dolfin, meshio, sys
print("FEniCS:", dolfin.__version__)
print("meshio:", meshio.__version__)
print("Python:", sys.version)

This confirms that FEniCS and its dependencies are correctly recognized inside your Jupyter environment.

Deliverable 2: Screenshot of the notebook cell output showing the printed versions.

Step 3 — Run a Small Test Problem ​

Now let’s confirm that the solver runs without errors. Copy and run this minimal Poisson example in a new notebook cell:

python
from fenics import *

mesh = UnitSquareMesh(8, 8)
V = FunctionSpace(mesh, "P", 1)
u = TrialFunction(V)
v = TestFunction(V)
f = Constant(-6.0)
a = dot(grad(u), grad(v))*dx
L = f*v*dx

u_sol = Function(V)
solve(a == L, u_sol)
print("Solver executed successfully!")

If everything is set up properly, you should see the message: Solver executed successfully!

(Optional) Save the solution to a file for later visualization:

python
with XDMFFile("output_poisson.xdmf") as xf:
    xf.write(u_sol)

Deliverable 3: Screenshot of the notebook cell showing the success message.

Step 4 — Confirm and Save ​

Check that you have:

  • Deliverable 1: Terminal output showing versions.
  • Deliverable 2: Jupyter cell output confirming environment setup.
  • Deliverable 3: Notebook showing the solver executed successfully.

(If you completed the optional step, keep output_poisson.xdmf — we’ll visualize it later in ParaView.)

Summary ​

This exercise confirms that your FEniCS, meshio, and Jupyter installations are correctly configured and that your solver environment runs as expected.

If you encountered any issues:

Once you’ve completed this exercise successfully, you’re ready to move forward with geometry creation, meshing, and running full simulation workflows.