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Conference call notes 20210901

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Kenneth Hoste edited this page Sep 15, 2021 · 7 revisions

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Notes on the 180th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday Sept 1st 2021 (15:00 UTC)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (7):

  • Simon Branford (Univ. of Birmingham, UK)
  • Alexander Grund (TU Dresden, Germany
  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)
  • Adam Huffman (Big Data Institute, Oxford, UK)
  • Terje Kvernes (University of Oslo, Norway)
  • Sam Moors (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
  • Jörg Saßmannshausen (NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, UK)

Agenda

  • overview of recent developments
  • Q&A

Recent developments

  • release timeline
    • last release: EasyBuild v4.4.1 (July 6th)
    • ETA next release: ASAP
    • over 400 merged easyconfig PRs since last release...
    • TODO
      • clean up 4.4.2 milestones, move stuff to "release after 4.4.2" milestone
      • merge last couple of (bug fix) PRs
      • regression test
  • recent changes
    • framework
      • bug fixes
        • make logdir writable also when --stop/--fetch is given (PR #3771)
        • check for recursive symlinks by default before copying a folder (PR #3784)
      • enhancements
        • speed up set_parallel method in EasyBlock class (PR #3812)
        • add get_cuda_cc_template_value method to EasyConfig class (PR #3807)
      • changes
        • add per-extension timing in output produced by eb command (PR #3734)
        • speed up tests by caching checked paths in set_tmpdir + less test cases for test_compiler_dependent_optarch (PR #3802)
    • easyblocks
      • bug fixes
        • copy the list to avoid changing the original lists in DEFAULT_TARGETS_MAP for Clang and LLVM (PR #2556)
        • fix motorBike test in sanity check for OpenFOAM 9 (PR #254)
        • generate and install pkg-config files for OpenSSL wrapper (PR #2549)
        • keep symlinks in cuDNN installations (PR #2550)
        • use ${BLAS,LAPACK}_SHARED_LIBS in GROMACS easyblock for FlexiBLAS-based toolchains (PR #2552)
      • enhancements
        • update ABAQUS easyblock to support installation of v2020 (PR #2034)
        • don't run "setup.py config" for numpy >= 1.21, since it's no longer supported (PR #2554)
        • update WIEN2k easyblock to handle new intel versions, WIEN2k v21, Perl dependency and tuning of dimension parameters (PR #2558)
      • new easyblocks
      • changes
        • enable make check and sanity check exec for OpenMPI (PR #2444)
        • simplify Boost easyblock (PR #2513)
    • easyconfigs
      • more than 130 easyconfig PRs merged since last conf call!
      • bug fixes
        • add patch to fix building Qt5 v5.10.1 against newer glibc (PR #13730)
        • fix PCRE dependency for GDAL 3.2.1 and 3.3.0, don't use PCRE2 (PR #13861)
        • fix sanity check error for OpenCV v4.5.1 by adding (and using) freetype and HarfBuzz dependencies (PR #12517)
        • various PRs to add missing pkg-config build dependency (cfr. PR #13538 for Rust)
      • enhancements
        • (nothing major)
      • new software
      • noteworthy software updates
        • more than 75 PRs with software updates...
        • lots of easyconfigs with updated software versions using GCCcore/11.2.0 toolchain (prep for 2021b generation of easyconfigs)
        • OpenFOAM v2106 (PR #13266) + OpenFOAM 9 (PR #13767) with foss/2021a
        • GROMACS 2021.03 with foss/2021a (FlexiBLAS) (PR #13772)
  • to merge/fix/tackle soon
    • framework
      • reported bugs / bug fixes
        • add optimal optimization flags for Intel compilers on AMD CPUs (issue #3793)
          • -xHost results in only using SSE2 on AMD systems...
        • allow optarch values to be partial maps including vector extensions (PR #3797
        • make sure git clone with a tag argument actually downloads a tag (PR #3795)
        • correctly resolve templates for patches in extensions when uploading to GitHub (PR #3805)
      • enhancements
        • avoid using a priority in prepend_module_path (Lmod) to avoid costly module calls (PR #3636)
        • add support for installing extensions in parallel (WIP) (PR #3667)
          • needs more test + a dedicated unit test
          • should be marked experimental at first?
        • finding modules with multiple modulepaths and HMNS (issue #3703)
        • add easybuild.tools.LooseVersion (PR #3794)
          • required because distutils which provides LooseVersion will be removed in Python 3.10+ ...
      • changes
    • easyblocks
      • reported bugs / bug fixes
        • (nothing major?)
      • enhancements
        • (nothing major?)
        • add support for installing R extensions in parallel (WIP) (PR #2408)
      • changes
        • (nothing major?)
      • new software
        • (nothing major?)
    • easyconfigs
      • bug reports & fixes
      • enhancements
        • (nothing major?)
      • new software
        • (nothing major?)
      • software updates
        • SciPy-bundle with intel/2021a (PR #12964)
          • need to look into handful of failing tests...

Common toolchains

2021b (WIP!)

  • for now: foss/2021.07 and intel/2021.07 (candidates for 2021b after testing confirms they work well)
  • base: GCCcore/11.2.0
    • unofficially, latest Intel versions should be compatible with GCC 11.2 ...
    • Sebastian got word that "Intel compiler 2021.3.0 is not compatible with GCC 11.2.0"
  • merged easyconfigs PRs with GCCcore/11.2.0:
  • TODO:
    • intel/2021.07 (PR #13639)
    • SciPy-bundle with foss/2021.07 (PR #13789)
      • segfault in tests on some systems?

Q&A

  • Sam: include common build dependencies like pkg-config with toolchain?
    • see long-standing open issue?
    • better/easier approach is probably to test in environment without pkg-config in OS (through containers)
  • Jörg: offering help with use of containers
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