Conference call notes 20220706

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Notes on the 201st EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 6 July 2022 (15:00 UTC)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (XXX):

• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)

• Bart Oldeman (Digital Research Alliance of Canada)

• Simon Branford (Univ. of Birmingham, UK)

• Jordi Camps (CNAG-CRG)

• Jasper Grimm (University of York, UK)

• Jorge Guerra (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain)

• Adam Huffman (Big Data Institute, Oxford, UK)

• Robert Mijakovic (LuxProvide, Luxembourg)

• Sebastien Moretti (SIB, Switzerland)

• Jörg Saßmannshausen (Imperial College London, UK)

• Åke Sandgren (Umeå University, Sweden)

Agenda

• overview of recent developments + outlook to next release
• Q&A

Recent developments

• release timeline
  • latest release: EasyBuild v4.5.5 (8 June 2022)
  • ETA next release (EasyBuild v4.6.0): ASAP
• recent changes
  • framework
    • bug fixes
      • tweak eb wrapper script to correctly handle errors when python command fails to run (PR #4019)
    • enhancements
      • add support for setting environment variables via 'pushenv' with modextravars (PR #4030)
      • add support for OneAPI compilers using toolchain option 'oneapi' (PR #4031 + PR #4032)
      • make check_linked_shared_libs more robust by taking into account that 'ldd' may fail (PR #4033)
      • fall back to sequential extension install if parallel install is not implemented (PR #4034)
      • add support for using template values in name/version of extensions (PR #4036)
    • changes
      • tweak apply_patch to not create .orig files (by default) when applying patch files (PR #4038)
  • easyblocks
    • bug fixes
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • update Siesta EasyBlock to support GCC 10+ by adding -fallow-argument-mismatch Fortran compiler option (PR #2690)
      • add more logging to install_pc_files method of OpenSSL wrapper easyblock (PR #2752)
      • make WPS easyblock aware of (pre)buildopts (PR #2754)
      • enhance Bazel easyblock to avoid writing to $HOME in sanity check (PR #2756)
      • disable altivec when building FFTW versions < 3.4 with single-precision with GCC on POWER (PR #2758)
    • updates
      • add Abseil system dependency for TensorFlow 2.9+ (PR #2757)
    • changes
      • ...
    • new software
      • ...
  • easyconfigs
    • ~XXX easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
    • bug fixes
      • switch to Rust 1.60.0 build dependency for bamtofastq, since build of fails with Rust 1.52.1 (E0658) (PR #15636)
    • enhancements
      • add patch for porefoam to fix hardcoded mpirun command and take into account $POREFOAM_MPIRUN_CMD (PR #15730)
      • add patch for GCCcore 11.3.0 to support using -fuse-ld=mold (PR #15715)
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • see also overview at https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/issues?q=is%3Amerged+label%3Anew
      • ...
    • noteworthy software updates
      • foss/2022a + intel/2022a common toolchains (PR #15755)
      • AlphaFold v2.2.2 with foss/2021a (PR #15129 + PR #15742)
      • FSL v6.0.5.1 with foss/2021a (PR #15768)
      • TensorFlow v2.7.1 with foss/2021b (PR #14990)
      • Qt5 v5.15.5 with GCCcore/11.3.0 (PR #15762)
      • WPS 3.9.1 with foss/2020b (PR #15769)
    • changes
      • in-place update to netCDF v4.9.0 with gompi/2022.05 (now gompi/2022a) (PR #15677)
  • framework
    • reported bugs / bug fixes
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • add support for start_dir easyconfig template (PR #4035)
    • changes
      • ...
  • easyblocks
    • bug reports/fixes
      • fix extension filter for Perl packages (PR #2699)
      • PythonPackage is not compatible with --sanity-check-only (issue #2745)
    • enhancements
      • allow some PyTorch tests to fail + print warning if one or more tests fail (PR #2742)
        • would be really nice to get this merged so it can be included with EasyBuild v4.6.0 release
      • add support for iterative build of OpenBLAS with 64-bit integers (PR #2753)
    • updates
      • ...
    • new software
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
  • easyconfigs
    • over 650 open easyconfig PRs, we're way overdue a significant cleanup round...
    • bug fixes
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • add patch for GCCcore 11.3.0 to support using -fuse-ld=mold (PR #15715)
      • support offline installation of Rust (see also issue #13548)
    • new software
      • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/labels/new
      • ...
    • noteworthy software updates
      • CP2K v9.1 with foss/2021a (PR #15146) and intel/2021a (PR #15147)
      • PyTorch v1.11.0 (PR #15137)
        • blocked by enhanced PyTorch easyblock (PR #2742)
      • R v4.2.1 with foss/2022a (PR #15767)
    • changes
      • suggestion: always use PythonBundle instead of PythonPackage (issue #15639)

Q&A

• ...