Desktop sessions

The Open OnDemand Desktop app starts a full Linux desktop on a compute node with the resources you request (including GPUs when needed). Prefer this for compute-heavy GUI work instead of FastX on a login/frontend node.

Links:

• Interactive apps overview
• Portal: ood.hpc.virginia.edu

Launch

1. Log in at Open OnDemand with NetBadge.
2. Interactive Apps → Desktop.
3. Choose allocation, time, cores/memory, and GPU if your GUI app needs one.

   Note: Request only the cores, memory, GPUs, and wall time you need. Smaller, shorter jobs usually start sooner because the scheduler can fit them into free capacity more easily.

4. Launch, then connect to the desktop when the job starts.

When to use it

• GUI tools that are not available as a dedicated OOD app
• Visualization or interactive software that needs a desktop environment on allocated hardware

Do not use the Desktop session as a place to submit other Slurm jobs; treat it as your interactive compute environment. For light file browsing or editing on a frontend, FastX may be enough but heavy work belongs on Desktop or a dedicated app (interactive apps overview).

Delete the session under My Interactive Sessions when you are done so the allocation is released.