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.
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.