The pw.x and ph.x input files are described in the QUANTUM ESPRESSO documentation. In this section we discuss only the creation of the file thermo_control. This file contains a namelist:
&INPUT_THERMO what=' ', ... /The what variable controls the sequence of calculations made by thermo_pw. For each possible value of what, we discuss briefly the input variables that you can use to control the output plots. Usually default values of the input variables are sufficient to carry out the basic thermo_pw tasks and you are not supposed to set any variable except what, but in some cases these input variables give you more control on the calculation and can be used to tune its accuracy.
thermo_pw actually writes on file the data to plot and writes a script to plot
these data. The output postscript files are produced by invoking the
gnuplot program within the code. Usually any modern Linux
distribution provides a package to install this code, or has it already
installed. If not, you can download it from
http://www.gnuplot.info/.
Three input variables of thermo_pw control
the use of the gnuplot code:
lgnuplot : if .TRUE. gnuplot is called from within the program
and the postscript files are immediately available
Default: logical .TRUE.
gnuplot_command : the command used to call gnuplot.
Default: character(len=*) 'gnuplot'
flgnuplot : initial part of the name of the files where gnuplot scripts
are written.
Default: character(len=*) 'gnuplot.tmp'
If you are running thermo_pw on a system that has not gnuplot
you can disable the production of the postscript files and use other
graphical tools to produce the plots from the output data.