Conference call notes 20191127

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Notes on the 137th EasyBuild conference call, Wednesday Nov 27th 2019 (17:00 - 18:00 CET)

Attendees

Alphabetical list of attendees (4):

• Kenneth Hoste (HPC-UGent, Belgium)
• Davide Vanzo (UT Southwestern)
• Fotis Georgatos (SDSC, Switzerland)
• Adam Huffman (Big Data Institute, Oxford)

Agenda

• update on recent developments for next release (EasyBuild v4.1.0)
• SC19 report by Davide/Adam
• Q&A

Update on recent developments for next release (EasyBuild v4.1.0)

• EasyBuild v4.1.0 planned to be released by early next week

• intention is to let Miguel take care of the actual release (with support from @boegel)

  • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/wiki/Release-management

• significant changes in framework (https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/milestone/73)

  • various small bugs fixed

  • added support for eb --sync-pr-with-develop

    • support for --create-branch-github and --new-pr-from-branch coming soon...

  • fixed excessive running of module use commands when non-existing directories are included in $MODULEPATH

    • long-standing issue (see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/issues/2226 + https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/issues/3084)
    • resolved by Mikael 👍
    • resulted in very sluggish eb -D & co
    • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/pull/3099

  • TODO

    • review/merge Ward's PR to generate extensions statements in module files picked up by Lmod 8.2
      • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-framework/pull/3085
    • fix bootstrap script (can also be done post-release)

• significant changes in easyblocks (https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyblocks/milestone/62)

  • add support for running pip check in sanity check for (bundles of) Python packages

    • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyblocks/pull/1853
  • • various other small bug fixes & enhancements

  • anything critical still pending that should be included with EasyBuild v4.1.0?

• significant changes in easyconfigs (https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/milestone/65)

  • added missing extensions to Python 3.7.2/3.7.4 + TensorFlow 2.0.0 easyconfigs (caught with pip check)

    • https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/9329
    • https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild-easyconfigs/pull/9338

  • easyconfigs for:

    • TensorFlow 1.15.0 (foss/2019b + fosscuda/2019b), TensorFlow 2.0.0 (fosscuda/2019b), Blender 2.81 (foss/2019b, intel/2019b), OpenFOAM v1906 (foss/2019b), PyTorch 1.3.1 (foss/2019b + fosscuda/2019b)

SC19 report by Davide/Adam

• no EasyBuild booth talks this year by Davide
  • but Davide's ex-colleague at Vanderbilt did a booth talk on EB
  • folks from UMich (see Slack channel) attended that
• GSSI BoF
  • went very well, ~140 responded during interactive survey
  • see https://github.com/easybuilders/easybuild/wiki/SC19-BoF-session-Getting-Scientific-Software-Installed
  • bigger room: better attendance, but did affect discussion (more intimidating)
  • few questions, mostly after the survey
  • open suggestions as last question in use case was interesting
  • interesting suggestion was to organize a hands-on event to get started with EasyBuild/Spack, seeing use cases, ...
    • hard to get into official SC program?
    • joint "workshop" with Spack/Lmod?
    • could be an external event to SC (but more difficult to get good attendance)
• Davide got in touch with Shelley Johnson (UMich)
  • currently figuring out a better approach, considering EasyBuild or Spack
  • several software stacks next to each other, difficult to achieve currently with EB when using HMNS
    • Markus is doing something like in his home dir on top of centrally installed module hierarchy
    • document this use case?
  • positively impressed after Davide's demo
• Intel licenses for generoso shared test infrastructure @ CSCS
  • Davide is in touch with someone who could get us floating licenses
  • open program would only get us a single-node license
• Davide/Adam: most people seem to consider EasyBuild/Spack on the same level in informal discussions

Q&A

• Fotis: becoming an EasyBuild maintainer?