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Conference call notes 20180606

Kenneth Hoste edited this page Jun 6, 2018 · 2 revisions

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Notes on the 103rd EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday June 6th 2018 (5pm - 6pm CEST)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (7):

  • Damian Alvarez (JSC, Germany)
  • Adam Huffman (Big Data Institute, University of Oxford)
  • Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)
  • Victor Holanda (CSCS, Switzerland)
  • Davide Vanzo (Vanderbilt University, US)
  • Bart Oldeman (ComputeCanada)
  • Fotis Georgatos (SDSC, Switzerland)

Agenda

  • 2018b common toolchains
  • Python in GCCcore
  • Q&A

2018b common toolchains

  • jump to GCC 7.3.0 as base for both foss/2018b and intel/2018b

    • Kenneth got feedback from Intel support that this should be OK for Intel compilers 2018 update 3 (even though it'll only be officially supported in 2019 version of Intel compilers)
  • foss/2018b proposal

  • intel/2018b proposal

  • include GCCcore/6.4.0 as build dependency for GCCcore/7.3.0 to fix installation on CentOS 6?

  • CUDA 9.2 supports GCC 7.3, but not Intel 2018 (only 2017)

Python in GCCcore

  • cfr. https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/5072 + https://lists.ugent.be/wws/arc/easybuild/2018-04/msg00045.html
  • Python-core is basically a replacement for the system Python, but we're in control over the version
  • Bart: seems orthogonal to Python setup @ ComputeCanada
  • should get (more) feedback from Markus & Jack
  • Davide: potential issues with situations where both are mixed?
  • Kenneth: we could add a test that ensures that Python-core is only used as a build dep
  • Davide: could also help with situation where python is re-built in SciPy bundle?
    • Damian: was a problem related to performance, python + numpy with Intel is faster
    • mostly synthetic benchmarks, so actual need is unclear...
  • Damian: jupyterhub (needs numpy) on top of hierarchy is not very convenient
    • looking into alternate approaches for that, ComputeCanada approach seems interesting
    • have everything built at GCCcore level?
      • have a (hidden) imkl (without FFTW interfaces) at GCCcore, which takes out compiler+MPI out of the equation
        • OK since imkl is a binary installation
  • Bart: be careful with libpython.so being RPATH'ed to Python-core...
  • Python environment mess: https://m.xkcd.com/1987/; pushing down stuff to GCCcore isn't helping either

Q&A

  • https://jitsi.org/ as potential replacement for Google+ Hangouts?
  • Fotis: alternative for imkl to ensure openly available toolchains compoents?
    • cfr. iomkl can be used without Intel MPI (Intel compilers + OpenMPI + imkl)
  • Victor:
    • shift EB conf call with 1 week to avoid clash with GROMACS conf call?
    • load a module with lots of dependencies with Lmod takes a long time
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