Conference call notes 20180725

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Notes on the 106th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday July 25th 2018 (5pm - 6pm CEST)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (6):

• Alan O'Cais (JSC, Germany)
• Davide Vanzo (Vanderbilt University, US)
• Bart Oldeman (ComputeCanada)
• Fotis Georgatos (SDSC, Switzerland)
• Åke Sandgren (Umeå University, Sweden)
• Pablo Escobar (UniBas/SciCORE, Switzerland)

Agenda

1. Improving --try-toolchain

• Initial PR is at https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/pull/2539
• Problem with version of binutils in easyconfigs using GCCcore, currently requires manual updating

2. Static linking in Amber easyblock

• Amber natively supports building statically
• Not a problem with IntelMPI but is when you try to use OpenMPI
• Davide has tested it without the static flag and no problems
• Ake has been using Amber since version 12 non-static

3. Supporting Go packages

• No one currently requesting Go packages
• Requires an easyblock similar to pythonpackage.py

4. Resolving errors with test_dep_versions_per_toolchain_generation

• Shows up for Wien2K in https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/6587
• QuantumESPRESSO has a hard dep on Automake < 1.16 which is a problem for 2018b toolchains
• Goes too deep when checking the versions...too strict?

5. Adding lib64/stubs to LIBRARY_PATH for Cuda

• Fotis: Bright points the CUDA toolkit modules to the driver directories, maybe for this reason
• Every version of CUDA requires a minimum driver version (driver version is now part of the CUDA version number)
• Driver actually installed must be new enough for the installed CUDA version (admin responsibility)

6. Bundle wrapper for Java dep so updating it doesn't require major changes when you need to update the SDK

• https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/5203
• Could there be edge cases where this is a problem?
• How backwards compatible is Java? Probably just need to ensure ignoring patch versions as per PR
• Don't accept a Java easyconfig for 2018b until we decide what to do!

7. Q&A

• hwloc has a dependency on libpciaccess, should we take it from the system or use an easyconfig?
  • Brought up on mailing list
  • hwloc probably just used to figure out some geometry so doesn't care too much about the version
  • problems may occur due it being in LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  • minimal change is to add it as an os-dep
  • could add it as a builddep and statically link (or rpath)
  • Åke may follow up with PR
• Gaussian, how do people deploy?
  • People create their own easyconfigs...but not everyone
  • Needs to be run with umask 007 (cannot currently be added to an easyconfig file)
  • Uses tarball easyblock with a couple of extra paths
  • Can we publish the easyconfig? There is an open PR https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/4247