Conference call notes 20161026

Notes on the 62nd EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday October 26th 2016 (5pm - 6pm CET)

Alphabetical list of attendees (4):

update on EasyBuild 3.0 roadmap: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/issues/255
- little progress during last couple of weeks...
update on RPATH: still WIP, see https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1942
- compiling GCC 5.4.0 with --rpath enabled fails with a weird problem...
update on deprecating of old/inactive toolchains
instruction set and cross compiling (e.g. --enable-avx2 for FFTW)
Q&A

https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1942
building GCC 5.4.0 with --rpath enabled fails in a weird way
- /usr/bin/install: cannot stat '.libs/libcc1.so.0.0.0': No such file or directory
- libtool command that is supposed to generate that file is skipped somehow
- no other errors found in the build log, nor in the rpath wrapper logs...
- https://gist.github.com/boegel/263ca62858b4785de533a6b50929e0e0
considered success if OpenFOAM can be built on top of foss/2016b with --rpath enabled
Bart: alternate approach to using RPATH: use EasyBuild in Nix (which does RPATH by default)
- this works to build HPL/OpenFOAM with iompi toolchain

https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/Deprecated-toolchains
about 100 software pkgs would be lost because they're only available with old toolchains
because the projects are dead, or nobody cares about them anymore, or because they're "good enough"?
AP KH: open issue with a list
--try-toolchain=foss,2016a to the rescue?

e.g. issue with FFTW mentioned by Joachim on ML: configure with --enable-avx2, or not?
- add FFTW easyblock that figures out which processor features are available, determine which configure options should be used?
- not using AVX2 for FFTW may cause 4x slowdown on Haswell, in theory...
FFTW is just one example, there are others
for FFTW specifically it may be OK, since it builds 'fat' binaries with runtime detection
- similar approach in recent OpenBLAS
other example of cross compilation: https://portal.tacc.utexas.edu/user-guides/stampede#knl-building
open issue in framework repo to track what is needed for this?
mostly a documentation problem to mention how cross compilation is supported now...
- e.g. build on every cluster + --optarch control

decouple EasyBuild framework releases from updates to easyconfigs(/easyblocks)?
- OK, but only if someone else helps with this...
- stable branch in easyblocks/easyconfigs repositories next to develop (considered unstable)?
- should be mentioned on the mailing list
  - what needs to change in the contribution workflow for this?
  - who has time to look into more frequent easyblocks/easyconfigs releases?
  - test reports should be done on top of EasyBuild framework master + easyblocks/easyconfigs stable
  - develop branch should be kept up-to-date with stable, ideally automagically...
- release process is documented at https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/Release-process
Joachim: HDF5 1.10 support?
- no PRs yet for it, maybe because other projects are not compatible with it yet?
- Joachim is planning to look into sending a PR for this
possible EasyBuild User Meeting coming up in Feb'17...
- same time period as FOSDEM'17 (https://hpc-bigdata-fosdem17.github.io/)
- keynote?
- tutorial on easyblocks would be nice
  - some (slightly outdated) docs available:
    - https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/Tutorial%3A-building-WRF-after-adding-support-for-it
    - http://users.ugent.be/~kehoste/EasyBuild-basics-CSCS_20150908.pdf
- previous edition: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/1st-EasyBuild-User-Meeting

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