Conference call notes 20190807

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Notes on the 130th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday Aug 7th 2019 (17:00 - 18:00 CEST)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (2):

• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
• Davide Vanzo (Vanderbilt University, USA)

Agenda

• outlook to next EasyBuild release
• update on progress towards EasyBuild 4.0
• 2019b update of common toolchains
• Q&A

Outlook to next EasyBuild release

• EasyBuild v3.9.4
  • last 3.x release?
• ETA: mid/end Aug'19

Update on progress towards EasyBuild 4.0

• https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/issues/447

• (moving) pre-alpha "release" @ https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/8568

• tweak easyconfigs to avoid warning due to use of local variables in easyconfig files

  • cfr. https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/pull/2938
  • docs update (still) pending, WIP @ https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/pull/527
  • example (using 4.x branches of all repos):

    eb GCCcore-8.3.0.eb -D
    == temporary log file in case of crash /Users/kehoste/work/TMP/eb-imshcunw/easybuild-970nrl8o.log
    
    WARNING: Use of 1 unknown easyconfig parameters detected in GCCcore-8.3.0.eb: mpfr_version
    If these are just local variables please rename them to start with 'local_', or try using --fix-deprecated-easyconfigs to do this automatically.
    ...
    

    • --fix-deprecated-easyconfigs can be useful, but is far from perfect in general, usual a better cleanup is possible/desired...
  • easyconfigs to clean up:
    • any using local variables that don't use recommended naming scheme
    • incl. toolchain easyconfigs, easyconfigs for Python packages that are not using %(pyver)s template values yet, ...
  • PR to kickstart the effort: https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/8682
  • warning will be printed for every easyconfig file you hit, incl. dependencies & toolchain (especially when using HMNS)
    • option to silence warning?
    • option to only print warning for easyconfigs being installed?

• support system toolchain as alias for dummy in EasyBuild 3.x: https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/pull/2960

  • require to ensure smooth transition to EasyBuild 4.0 via eb --install-latest-eb-release

• TODO:

  • custom easyblock for OpenMPI
  • more testing with EasyBuild on top of Python 3...

2019b update of common toolchains

• foss/2019b proposal: https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/8567
• intel/2019b proposal: https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/8681
  • Davide: drop -GCC-* from versionsuffix for? iccifort
    • also drop -OpenBLAS-* suffix for ScaLAPACK?
• note: binutils version dropped from versionsuffix in subtoolchain: GCC/8.3.0 (rather than GCC/8.3.0-2.32)
• some further testing needed to vet these proposals...
• include in next EasyBuild 3.x, or only in EasyBuild 4.0 as incentive to make the jump?
  • EasyBuild 4.0 will not include any actual (major) breaking changes, so that shouldn't hold back sites from picking up on 2019b toolchains

Q&A

• (none)