Conference call notes 20160803

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Notes on the 56th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday August 3rd 2016 (5pm - 6pm CET)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (6):

• Markus Geimer (JSC, Germany)
• Fotis Georgatos (Illumina, UK)
• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent)
• Adam Huffman (Francis Crick Institute, UK)
• Alan O'Cais (JSC, Germany)
• Robert Schmidt (OHRI, Canada)

Agenda

• Q&A

Notes

• installing EasyBuild on system without internet access

  • e.g. Mare Nostrum
  • bootstrap script doesn't work offline
  • setuptools always tries to go online
  • easybuild-framework requires vsc-base, which requires vsc-install
  • just unpacking tarballs for vsc-base and easybuild-* & updating $PYTHONPATH should be sufficient
    • should be covered in the docs
  • enhance bootstrap script to also cover vsc-install
    • cfr. http://easybuild.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Installation.html#bootstrapping-using-supplied-source-tarballs

• failing EasyBuild framework tests

  • both with bootstrapped installation + develop setup with repos
  • more tests fail with develop setup
  • cfr. https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/1848

• Adam: upcoming PRs for bioinfo w/ 2016b toolchains

  • also easyconfig with (almost) all BioConductor extensions...

• future roadmap

  • EasyBuild v2.9.0
    • roughly planned for end of August'16
    • preparation for EasyBuild v3.0.0
    • experimental support for RPATH?
      • code sprint by Kenneth & Rob sometime mid August?
  • EasyBuild v3.0.0
    • by SC16?
    • deprecated toolchains, archived easyconfigs
    • changed default configuration settings (e.g. Lmod as default)
  • cfr. https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild/wiki/Conference-call-notes-20160525

• Markus: PRs w.r.t. 'hidden' aspects

  • hidden easyconfig parameter: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1837
  • hidden toolchains: https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/pull/1683
    • support for specifying hidden in --try-toolchain via separate PR?
  • make robot consider hidden modules too
    • https://github.com/hpcugent/easybuild-framework/issues/1079
    • only enable in EasyBuild v3.0?

• Fotis: GCC 6.1?

  • Ward was playing around with it, but got stuck
  • Adam: lots of Fedora packages have problems getting compiled with GCC 6.1
  • Fotis: had some demand for it

• have GCC-based toolchains with Graphite support enabled by default?

  • 15% speedup for gzip just by enabling Graphite-enabled GCC!
  • Markus: Graphite-enabled GCC isn't much harder than a 'normal' GCC build (on Debian 7)