Conference call notes 20190529

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Notes on the 125th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday May 29th 2019 (17:00 - 17:30 CEST)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (7):

• Davide Vanzo (Vanderbilt University)
• Damian Alvarez (Jülich Supercomputing Centre)
• Bart Oldeman (ComputeCanada)

Agenda

• Update on next EasyBuild release (3.9.2)
• Update on progress towards EasyBuild 4.0
• More aggressive optimizations for NAMD?
• New option to skip -OX flags?
• Changing $HOME in the CUDA easyblock
• Q&A

Outlook to EasyBuild v3.9.2

• ETA: June 10th
• framework:
  • https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/milestone/66
  • Improvements for container support
    • Non-image bootstrap agents
    • Support for sif images
  • Fix for fix_python_shebang_for and fix_perl_shenang_for not accepting parameters
  • open issues:
    • Architecture specific dependencies
• easyblocks
  • https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyblocks/milestone/57
  • ELPA easyblock merged
• easyconfigs
  • https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/milestone/60
  • Arch specific examples for fosscuda?
  • ELPA easyconfigs

The road to EasyBuild v4.0

• https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/milestone/64
• ETA for EasyBuild 4.0 is (still) by summer 2019...
• Likely to have more 3.9.x releases before 4.0
• No more 3.9.x releases after 4.0 is released

More aggressive optimizations for NAMD?

• NAMD recommends more aggressive optimizations than we have.
  • But there is no test suite
  • Davide: It is always difficult with MD codes
  • Damian: tough call
    • Davide: If the developers say it....
    • Damian: Yes, but the build is very brittle, minor changes in compiler version releases break it

New option to skip -Ox flags?

• Some packages specify their own CFLAGS, CXXFLAGS, etc.
  • New option to avoid EB-defined -Ox flags?
  • Damian: In toolchainopts?

Changing $HOME in the CUDA easyblock

• The CUDA installer attempts to write in $HOME
  • Should we fix it?
  • $TMPDIR or $EASYBUILD_BUILDPATH?
  • Davide and Bart: No strong feelings regarding where, but should be fixed
  • Damian: Other packages could also need it (eg: Jupyter with extensions)

Q&A