Conference call notes 20230621

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Notes on the 223rd EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday 21 June 2023 (08:00 UTC)

Attendees

List of attendees (XXX):

• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)

• Sebastian Achilles (JSC, Germany)

• Simon Branford (Univ. of Birmingham, UK)

• Alex Domingo (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

• Jasper Grimm (University of York, UK)

• Sven Hansen (RWTH, Germany)

• Terje Kvernes (University of Oslo, Norway)

• Sam Moors (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)

• Sebastien Moretti (SIB, Switzerland)

• Alan O'Cais (CECAM, Univ. of Barcelona)

• Mikael Öhman (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

• Bart Oldeman (Digital Research Alliance of Canada)

• Jurij Pečar (EMBL, Germany)

• Jörg Saßmannshausen (Imperial College London, UK)

• Alexandre Strube (JSC, Germany

• Caspar van Leeuwen (SURF, Netherlands)

• Davide Vanzo (Microsoft)

Agenda

• overview of recent developments + outlook to next release
• progress on 2023a update of common toolchains
• Q&A

Recent developments

• request for feedback (in context of EasyBuild 5.0 effort)
  • Minimum supported Lmod Version (issue #871)
  • Toolchain Support Policy (issue #872)
• release timeline
  • latest release: EasyBuild v4.7.2 (28 May 2023)
  • ETA next release (EasyBuild v4.7.3?): end of June'23
• progress on EasyBuild 5.0
  • see updates in https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/wiki/EasyBuild-5.0-working-group
• recent changes
  • docs (merged PRs)
    • add initial page with overview of changes in EasyBuild v5.0 (PR #137)
    • rank down release notes page in search results (PR #159)
  • framework (merged PRs)
    • bug fixes
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • add script to find updated easyconfigs for installed modules (PR #4271)
    • changes
      • replace imp.load_source by leveraging importlib.util.module_from_spec when using Python 3 (PR #4280)
    • EasyBuild 5.0 (to 5.0.x branch)
      • ...
  • easyblocks (merged PRs)
    • bug fixes
      • improve handling of optarch in Cargo easyblock (PR #2947)
    • enhancements
      • add support for NVIDIA Hopper CC 9.0 in LAMMPS (PR #2941)
    • updates
      • ...
    • changes
      • ...
    • new software
      • ...
    • EasyBuild 5.0 (to 5.0.x branch)
      • ...
  • easyconfigs (merged PRs)
    • ~75 easyconfig PRs were merged since last conf call
    • bug fixes
      • fix exec permissions for all binaries & scripts of L_RNA_scaffolder 20190530 (PR #18030)
      • enable building static libs and check for libexslt.* in libxslt (PR #18064)
      • add -pthread flag for dorado (PR #18072)
      • add missing patch files for Qt5 5.15.2 to fix build problems with glibc 2.34 (PR #18087)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • (noteworthy) new software
      • see also https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Amerged+label%3Anew
      • AlphaPulldown (PR #17774)
      • DaliLite (PR #17989)
    • noteworthy software updates
      • see also https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Amerged+label%3Aupdate+
      • CP2K v9.1 & v2022.1 for foss 2022a (PR #16007)
    • changes
      • fix toolchain for networkx-3.0: foss/2022b -> gfbf/2022b (PR #18061)
  • docs (open PRs + issues)
    • project board to perform yearly review cycle of all documentation pages: https://github.com/orgs/easybuilders/projects/17/views/1
    • ...
  • framework (open PRs + issues)
    • reported bugs / bug fixes
      • regression with versionsuffix types (issue #4281)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • changes
      • change tar command used in get_source_tarball_from_git to get reproducible tarballs (PR #4248)
    • EasyBuild 5.0 (to 5.0.x branch)
      • enable --trace by default (PR #4250)
        • test suite passes, CI is green
        • still need to assess impact on GitHub-related tests
      • update check_python_version for removed Python 2 support (PR #4270)
      • remove support for 32-bit targets (PR #4272)
      • remove deprecated desc option for simple_option (PR #4273)
      • remove deprecated Toolchain.add_dependencies (PR #4274)
      • remove deprecated functionality from filetools (PR #4275)
      • remove deprecated log_error option from which command (PR #4276)
      • remove deprecated skip_lower option from template_constant_dict (PR #4277)
      • removed deprecated mod_exists_regex_template to exist (PR #4279)
      • remove deprecated options from easyconfig.py (PR #4278)
  • easyblocks (open PRs + issues)
    • bug reports/fixes
      • fixes issue in sympy test step when tmpdir is a symlink (PR #2949)
        • awaiting test report to confirm the fix
      • reset modules loaded by PythonPackage to let ExtensionEasyBlock handle multi_deps correctly (PR #2951)
    • enhancements
      • ...
    • updates
      • ...
    • new easyblocks
      • add PerlBundle generic easyblock for installing a bundle of Perl modules (PR #2945)
    • changes
      • ...
  • easyconfigs (open PRs + issues)
    • still over 800 open easyconfig PRs...
    • bug fixes/reports
      • ...
    • enhancements
      • improve check for multi-variant dependencies per generation of easyconfigs (PR #12687)
    • new software
      • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/labels/new
    • noteworthy software updates
      • PyTorch 1.13.1 (PR #17155 + PR #17156)
    • changes
      • ...

2023a update of common toolchains

• see PRs marked with 2023a label
• using GCC 12.3.0 as a base
• see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/labels/2023a
• Perl 5.36.1 with minimal set of extensions in merged PR #17946
• Perl-bundle-CPAN easyconfig (PR #17970)
  • required new PerlBundle easyblock (PR #2945)
• Python 3.11.3 with minimal set of extensions in merged PR #17955
  • only includes setuptools + pip + wheel as extensions
• foss/2023.05 candidate for foss/2023a (PR #18066)
• updates to UCC 1.2.0 (PR #18127) + PMIx 4.2.4 (PR #18144)
• TODO:
  • Python-bundle-PyPI easyconfig for other extensions
  • separate easyconfig for virtualenv
  • figure out what to do with build tools like poetry, hatchling, etc.: separate easyconfig or include in Python-bundle-PyPI
  • Rust 1.70.0 (PR #18016)
• see also notes in https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/wiki/EasyBuild-5.0-working-group + https://hackmd.io/K1QhWGfdQWa2ZtlXlWVCCA
• we'll stay away from OpenMPI 5.0 for foss/2023a, and go with latest OpenMPI 4.x
• problem for candidate for intel/2023a
  • intel-compilers 2023.1 depends on GCCcore/12.2.0
  • no 2023 update 2 update of Intel compilers expected before mid July 2023 (source: Kenneth's contact at Intel)
• CUDA version for 2023a?
  • CUDA 12.1 should be compatible with GCC 12.x, so OK
  • support for sm35 (K40) + sm37 (K80) are being dropped

Q&A

• ...