Gaussian 16 remains the gold standard for electronic structure modeling. While the software runs on multiple platforms, its true power—scalability, speed, and flexibility—unfolds only on Linux . Whether you are a PhD student setting up your first calculation or a system administrator maintaining a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster, understanding the nuances of running Gaussian 16 on Linux is essential.

#!/bin/bash #SBATCH --job-name=G16_HF #SBATCH --nodes=1 #SBATCH --ntasks-per-node=16 #SBATCH --mem=64G #SBATCH --time=24:00:00 export GAUSS_SCRDIR=/local/scratch/$SLURM_JOB_ID mkdir -p $GAUSS_SCRDIR Run Gaussian with OpenMPI hybrid g16 < input.com > output.log Clean up rm -rf $GAUSS_SCRDIR Benchmarks: Tuning Gaussian 16 on Linux Raw installation is not enough. You must optimize for your hardware. Memory Tuning In your input file, do not allocate all RAM ( %Mem=64GB ) if you run parallel jobs. The rule of thumb: %Mem = (Total RAM / Number of cores) * 0.8 (leave 20% for OS overhead). Linux Kernel Parameters For heavy DFT calculations (e.g., B3LYP/def2-TZVPP on 100 atoms), tune the swappiness and I/O scheduler:

cd /opt/gaussian/g16 ./bsd/install.csh Choose option 5 (Linux x86_64) and select your parallel flavor: SMP (single node) or Linda (multi-node). The Gaussian input file ( test.com ) remains platform-agnostic, but the submission method differs drastically on Linux. Interactive Test (Single Core) g16 < test.com > test.log Parallel Execution (SMP – Shared Memory) Always specify %NProcShared and %Mem .