[Beowulf] Thoughts on EasyBuild?

[Faraz Hussain]

Thanks for all the replies. I am certainly going to invest some time  
learning it and giving it a full test-drive. I am curious though how  
often are these builds successful? For example say a user wants  
openfoam, cp2k or wrf. How often does the user say the build is  
missing the functionality they use? And if it is missing, do you go  
back and build from source or try and debug the easybuild files?

My approach to installing software is work with the user 1-1 to  
understand what they are trying to do and what features they need.  
Software like wrf has many components, each with many configurable  
options. I am not sure I would trust a 1-command approach to all that.

Also while building from source you discover advanced options. For  
example you would learn that some features do not support mpi. I think  
one would miss all that if you just black-box it, no?


Quoting Miguel Costa <migueldiascosta at gmail.com>:

> Dear Faraz,
>
> to me, easyBuild (or spack) is not merely another build/install tool.
>
> The know-how about building optimized scientific software that is embedded
> in easyconfigs and easyblocks (or spack packages), and their respective
> communities, is reason enough to get on board (and contribute back).
>
> The HPC world is a better place with them around, growing in scope, and
> attracting more people.
>
> My two (sing) cents,
> Miguel
>
> On Thu, Jan 17, 2019 at 11:43 PM Faraz Hussain <info at feacluster.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Some folks I work with are using EasyBuild but I am not sure what to
>> make of it. I am little skeptical of tools that promise one-command
>> installations of complex software. On the other hand I can see its
>> benefits by saving a lot of "re-inventing the wheel".
>>
>> What do people think? Like everything, the answer is probably it
>> depends on what you use it for? Or is it another layer of complexity
>> that just makes everything more complex?
>>
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